


Aftermath

by 10MonthDay (AwwKeyboardNo)



Series: Life We Live [2]
Category: Hey Arnold!
Genre: ;), Attempt at Humor, Bob Pataki's A+ Parenting, Breakfast, Character Driven Rather Than Plot Driven, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Hey Arnold - The Jungle Movie, Humor, I love Gerald&Helga friendship so much, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Major Spoilers, Nightmares, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Helga Pataki, Panic Attacks, Post-Hey Arnold - The Jungle Movie, Secret Identity, Secret Relationship, Sibling Bonding, Spoilers, The Shortman Family are all Cinnamon Rolls, Therapy, Truth Reveals, ish, just FYI, or rather, so much hand holding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-02-09 08:08:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12883641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwwKeyboardNo/pseuds/10MonthDay
Summary: There are about two months worth of memories that must have happened in between Arnold and company rescuing his parents and the Green Eyes, and the beginning of sixth grade.Take a peek through Helga's eyes.





	1. "Long Weekend" in San Lorenzo

**Author's Note:**

> Contains references to my one-shot, Be Aware of Your Surroundings, but you won't be TOO lost if you don't read it. (But it would mean a lot to me if you would)
> 
> Basically, Helga and Gerald are cool with each other.
> 
> And one more person -knows- the secret.
> 
> I've been working on this since last week and I still can't stop someone help :O

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The class doesn't head straight back to Hillwood. Instead, they spend a few days in San Lorenzo's city. Helga really, really doesn't mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stella and Miles -are- major characters, but they won't start appearing until next chapter.

Helga feels sweaty. And gross. Not mention, dizzy and slightly nauseous. The large group is on their way back to the main city in San Lorenzo, Arnold’s parents in tow. She is sitting on the deck of the boat, leaning against one of the sides in an attempt to catch whatever breeze their motion brings.

It hits her that she hasn’t eaten since the day before. The only water she’d been able to drink was from a canteen that Arnold had had in his backpack—and she, Gerald, and Arnold had shared it between each other.

(She had _not_ gotten swoony over the indirect kiss. She _hadn’t_.)

Helga has really just got to _stop_ having Arnold Adventures, it’s beginning to take a toll on her health. Already, her dehydration and lack of food have brought on the promise of a migraine.

She brings a hand up to her head, pressing on the dull, pulsing ache behind her eyes. She takes a couple deep breaths, grateful for the slightly cooler air brought on by the river. It feels good on her chapped lips (they're bleeding a little, because she cannot stop herself from biting them—it doesn’t help). This does nothing to stop the way her stomach rolls with the lack of food though (she ignores the familiarness of this—she’s not in the mood to think about her family), and it rolls even more with the rocking of the boat.

It’s not a good combination.

She can taste bile at the back of her throat and swallows a couple times to try and rid herself of it. What a _wonderful_ and _perfect_ time for her screwed up stomach to remind her that she’s stuck with it! It’s certainly a matched set with her equally pained and messed up head!

Helga scowls and presses her face into her knees to block out the mid-morning light.

She is just feeling the smallest vestiges of sleep and is trying to follow it, when she hears footsteps approach and stop next to her. She doesn’t look up, even when the person moves to sit next to her.

“Hey Helga,” Arnold says softly. “You okay?” His voice is worried and—dare she think it?—loving.

She lifts her head but doesn’t open her eyes, as she gives a weak smile in his direction. “Bit of a headache,” she replies. It’s an understatement, but she doesn’t want to worry him too much.

“Oh, well, I brought you some water.” There is the press of a cold bottle on her arm and it’s _wonderful_. She takes it with a breathy thanks, opening it with her eyes still closed and gulps down half of it. She passes it back to him and he takes it as he continues speaking. “You want me to leave you alone, cuz of your headache?”

She shakes her head sharply and regrets it immediately, dizziness making her want to pass out. She finally opens her eyes to peer blurrily at Arnold. “No, you can stay. I—I want you to. To stay.”

It’s difficult to get that out without backpedaling into insults, and even harder to stop herself from saying more. Saying too much.

She does not say that he is the best medicine there is, because she doesn’t want to scare him off with monologuing. She’ll wait until they’re both more rested to hit him with all that stuff. Then, maybe.

Instead she scoots nearer to him until their sides are pressed together. “Is…is this okay?”

In response he puts an arm around her and lets her lean further against him. She sighs happily. Really, it’s too hot out for hugging but Helga _does not care_. She has waited six years to cuddle with this boy and she will _take it_.

Sure, when she’d imagined it, her head hadn’t hurt and she hadn’t been nauseous from hunger, but it’s still perfect.

She is so, _so_ in love with him.

Helga drifts off, feeling comfortable and safe in his embrace. It’s the best feeling in the world, she thinks to herself and smiles sleepily.

* * *

She wakes in a bed. Warm. Alone.

For a long moment, despair wrenches itself so deeply from within her—because, of course, _of course_ , it had only been a dream. That crazy, stupid adventure had been far too outlandish…Arnold kissing her so sweetly (kissing her _at all_ ) was just too unrealistic.

It had been a good dream, but she wishes she could have pretended for a little longer. A sob tears from her throat involuntarily. At the sound, a lump she hadn't noticed at the foot of the bed shifts.

“Helga?” Arnold murmurs.

Her heart leaps and she jerks up. Immediately, a familiar wave of dizziness washes over her but she ignores it in favor of gazing at the beloved football-shaped head that’s lifting up from where it had been pillowed at the foot of her bed. His eyes meet hers and he smiles that sweet, perfect smile of his.

Her lungs fill with taffy.

“It wasn't a dream, was it?” she breathes out, hopeful but desperate for the confirmation all the same.

He doesn't laugh at the question; only moves the chair he's been sitting on closer to her so he can take her hand. “If it was, we had the same dream.”

She beams at him. After a moment of staring at their joined hands, she falls into contemplativeness. “Hey, Arnold? Are we—You and me, have we become a—”

She can't quite get herself to say ‘couple’, or ‘boyfriend and girlfriend’ aloud. If she did, she might jinx herself. Or he might recoil at the words.

But he squeezes her hand, his bright smile not falling any. Though it takes on a nervous quality that makes _her_ doubly nervous.

“Helga. I like you a lot—I like you-like you. When—when we get home, do you, maybe, wanna go on a d-date?”

Fireworks light up inside her. She tears up a little and smiles wider than she can ever remember smiling. “I'd. I'd _really_ like that.”

* * *

 “So, you and Arnold,” Gerald starts, grinning and gently elbowing Helga in the ribs. She gives him a deadpan expression.

“Yeah, yeah, Geraldo, yuk it up,” she says, but there isn’t much animosity in her tone. She’s honestly surprised he’s waited this long to bring it up.

They are sitting in a clinic in San Lorenzo’s main city. Their entire class has to be checked out before they’ll be allowed to go back to the United States, just in case one of them is carrying the Sleeping Sickness. The adults haven’t said as much, but Helga knows that they are all under quarantine.

The children have been split up between the three medical facilities in the city. Theirs is the smallest group and so they are in the smallest clinic.

Helga doesn’t mind. The less people around to see her make moon eyes at Arnold, the better. The only people around are ones who are technically _in_ on the Arnold secret: Phoebe, Brainy, Nadine, Gerald—the newest addition being, of course, Arnold himself.

Arnold is near enough to hear Helga and Gerald talking and he makes his way over. Helga catches his hand when he’s close enough and laces their fingers together. Then he gives her a smile that makes her feel all melty inside. She continues her conversation with Gerald, however.

“It’s not like you’re at all surprised,” she tells him and he shrugs and nods in agreement.

“Yeah, I totally called it.” There is the slightest bit of smugness in his tone.

Arnold looks between the two of them and raises an eyebrow in question. Helga smiles, a little nervously.

“Tall Hairboy over here came across me while I was, erm, uh—” she pauses, trying to come up with a way to say _rhapsodizing at my locket_ without sounding crazy. Finally, she shrugs. She’s told him about her shrines before, this is less insane than that. “While I was monologuing to my locket...about how much I...well, you _know_ —I’ve told you three separate times now.”

“About how you love me,” Arnold says eagerly, beaming up at her. She feels her face burn and fights the urge to swoon into his arms like a romance novel heroine.

She gives him a half-hearted glare instead. “W-well, you don’t need to get a b-big head about—I mean, since—”

“—since my stupid football head is already huge, huh?” Arnold interrupts and then finishes her insult—almost exactly what she’d been planning to say. He gives her a cheeky grin and this time she can’t help the swooning sigh it brings.

“You two are going to give me cavities,” Gerald says, rolling his eyes and chuckling.

“Hmm, _who_ was it flirting with my best friend just a little while ago?” Helga drawls, tapping her chin in mock thought. “ _Who_ has been flirting with my best friend for the past two years?”

He blushes but raises his head to give her an appraising look. “Speaking of that…”

“Oh yeah, I promised, didn’t I?” she drawls and then yells across the room. “ _Hey_ Phoebs! Are you gonna be busy next weekend?”

Phoebe looks up from her conversation with Nadine. “I’m not likely to be so, no,” she calls back, tilting her head curiously.

“Geraldo is asking you out on a date! You wanna?”

Simultaneously, Phoebe and Gerald blush.

“Helga!” Gerald hisses, hunching a little and glaring at the blond girl. “When you said you were gonna set me and Phoebe up, this wasn’t what I thought you—”

“I would be very amenable to that!” Phoebe squeaks out.

Immediately, Gerald straightens up and smooths his hair a little. “That would be fantastic, Phoebe—Dinner and a movie okay?”

Phoebe beams at him and nods. She presses her hands to her bright pink cheeks, giving her own version of a swooning sigh. It’s _adorable_ and Helga grins at the sight.

Then she turns her grin on Gerald and raises her brow. He returns the grin and it widens as Arnold breaks out into chuckles. He has been watching this exchange like one would watch tennis.

“That was pretty sly of you Helga,” he says admiringly. Gerald gives him a mock look of betrayal.

Helga shrugs. “I knew she wasn’t going to say no—I’ve been watching these two pine after each other since the third grade… _and Phoebe’s pined since second grade_ …” This last part is said at a mumble.

Gerald blinks. “Huh?”

Helga giggles nervously. “Nothing, I didn’t say anything—hey why don’t you go flirt with Phoebe, I wanna chat with Arnoldo.”

He raises his eyebrows but obliges after a moment.

“Man, Phoebe might actually snap and kill me if I told him that,” Helga mutters to Arnold with a wry grin. “I mean—either that, or use some of the significant dirt she has on me. Either way—” she clutches at her throat with her free hand and mimes choking.

He laughs and tugs her away from the middle of the lobby to a bench around the corner that’s just secluded enough for privacy. They sit with their sides pressed together and Helga throws an arm around his shoulder, running her fingers over his hair a little.

She has resisted doing something so obvious and blatantly admiring, but she pretty much has _permission_ now.

“So, um, you saying you wanted to chat was just to get Gerald to go to Phoebe, yeah?” He puts his own arm around her side. Helga’s insides warm.

She shrugs. “Yeah, but it’s not like it’s a _hardship_ for me to spend time alone with you.” She puts a hand against her forehead melodramatically. “Oh _no_ , I have to hang out with the boy I’ve had a crush on since pre-school, and with no one around, whatever shall I do?”

“Pre-school?”

She curses under her breath. “Just. Pretend you _didn’t_ hear that.”

He shook his head, his arm tightening. “No, hang on, you mentioned something like this when you confessed to me…”

Her shoulders slump. “I’ve loved you ever since I laid eyes on that ‘stupid football head’,” she recites dully.

“That’s a long time,” Arnold says.

“Way to state the obvious, _dollface_.” With that snapping remark, Helga begins to tug out of his grip and tries to rise. But, his grip tightens a little more and he stands with her.

“It must have hurt to keep all that inside all this time,” he says, big jellybean-green eyes caught with hers.

Her heart speeds up. “What?”

“I mean, I’ve like-liked you for months now, and keeping it secret was awful!”

“What?” she says again. “Why would—?” She can’t figure out if she wants to be angry or ecstatic. “Months?!”

He rubs the back of his neck. “Well, I wanted to figure out my feelings on the whole thing before I brought it up again. A-and, even then, once I knew I _had_ those kinds of feelings, I wanted to make sure it wasn’t just because I knew _you_ love _me_. T-that wouldn’t’ve been fair to you…So, by the time I figured _that_ out, the thing with contest happened and I got distracted. A-and then, on the boat…I—” His face is guilty. “I knew what you were trying to get me to say, but that didn’t feel like the right time—I was feeling guilty for keeping the thing about my parents secret and I just—It would have felt wrong then, I’m sorry.”

She smiles, a little reluctantly. “Well, I guess it _is_ hard to beat an impassioned confession on a rooftop in the rain. Remember to thank Brainy later, though.”

“It left an impression,” he agrees, before frowning in confusion. “Thank him for what?”

She pulls out her locket and hands it to him. It’s chipped from her attempts to get it out of the cure dispenser and slightly rusted around the clasp from the river. The jaggedness of the repaired picture makes her gut wrench in guilt whenever she looks at it. “After…What happened in the crows nest. I, well. I feel all my emotions very strongly and despair is one of the larger ones. So, I…kinda tore up your picture and tossed my locket into the river.”

He is gazing at the locket with a touch of sadness and a furrow in between his brow. “What does Brainy have to do with—?”

“He’s the one who put it back together—and before you ask why, it’s because, for some strange reason, he likes _me_.”

“It's not _so_ strange that someone would like you,” Arnold protests, after a moment of digesting this fact.

“No, I mean he really _likes_ me,” she clarifies, but he nods like he knows that’s what she meant. Helga puts a hand on her hip. “He’s the _me_ to my _you_.”

He smiles at the analogy. If he finds this revelation shocking, it doesn’t show. “So, you find him intriguing and interesting and funny and kinda cute?” he asks cheekily.

“No _way_ , I—” She blinks, face burning. “Did you just call me c-cute?”

He puts the locket back into her hands and closes her fingers around them. Then he steps back (the first time he’s moved out of her personal space since they came over here. She’s slightly disappointed). “Well, yeah.” He sits back down on the bench and beckons her to join him, but she’s stock still and staring.

“But, I—I—” Anxiousness and incredulity churn in her stomach. Because, _really_ …

She’s got no illusions. She’s not the most _stereotypically feminine_ chick. And, sure, she’s gotten comfortable with that. She’s okay with not being the prettiest or the smartest or _whatever_. And, if she’s going to be with this boy, he needs to be okay with that too—not pretending just to make her feel good.

Helga sighs. “You don’t have to lie; my self-esteem isn’t going to shatter just because I know you’re not with me for my looks—”

“—Helga,” Arnold interrupts patiently. “I’m not lying. You _are_ cute. Your eyes are a really pretty color of blue and your hair is shiny and when you really smile it’s like—like sunrise at five in the morning. Really beautiful, but something that not a lot of people see because they don’t go looking for it or sometimes it goes away for a long time, but that just makes it better when you _do_ see it and you start noticing different details every time you watch it and, and—” His face floods with red and his eyes shift to floor, mouth snapping shut. His words had gotten progressively faster and more fervent, but now he’s quiet again.

Helga’s knees buckle under her and she flops to sit on the floor. She feels dizzy—but a good kind of dizzy. She gives a breathy huff of laughter and presses her hands to her burning face. “If I wasn’t already so in love with you as I am, that would’ve definitely done it,” she says after a moment and his head jerks back up to look at her.

He’s still blushing but, when he speaks, his voice is level again. “A-anyway, the point is, it’s not strange that someone would like you-like you.”

It takes Helga a couple more moments to collect herself, then she coughs and gets up off the floor. She sits next to him with a snort of laughter. “You are just some kinda charmer, huh Football Head?”

He ducks his head, the comment making him go shy—which, he has _just_ spent half a minute enthusing about how pretty she is, but he’s unable to admit that _he’s_ charming…

Looks like she’s going to have her work cut out for her in regards to complimenting this deserving boy she loves so dearly.

* * *

They are walking along the water at the docks, she and Arnold. It is their last full day in San Lorenzo. Tomorrow, they will all be flying back to the states. Helga wants to spend as much time as possible with Arnold in this place where nobody knows them. This place, where she can hold his hand, and stop to hug him for no particular reason. This place, where, despite  _all_ that's happened _,_ she feels safe.

Earlier this morning, just after breakfast, she had hooked a rough arm around his neck and said loudly, for their class to hear, “Since you put me through all that crap the other day, you _owe_ me, you stupid Football Head.”

It had taken Arnold a second to catch on—first blinking in hurt confusion, before his eyes lit up in understanding. “Sure Helga,” he had said, giving a put-upon sounding sigh. “What d’you want?”

Helga had ignored the barely hidden grins of Gerald and Phoebe, as she spoke in a very haughty voice. “You’re gonna buy me stuff. And if you cheap out, I’ll pound that head of yours flat.”

Thus, they had made their escape.

The sun is warm but not overbearing on Helga’s neck. They’ve stopped in a rather secluded section of the docks. Now, they’re just looking out over the water.

Arnold is giving her a sweet, teasing smile. “Ya know, Eduardo told me that the Green Eyes are adding a new tale onto their walls.”

She smirks. “Lemme guess—it’s _all_ about how their football-headed “demigod” put an end to the dreaded sleeping sickness and saved them all. Wooo~” She wiggles her fingers in a faux mystical manner.

His eyes are twinkling. “Sort of, but you left out the most important bit—the part where the heroine, Helga, was the key factor in their salvation.” He sidles up closer to her. “I get the feeling they’re gonna start chanting your name too.”

She blushes violently. “H-heroine?” She kinda likes the sound of that. Though, the chanting was creepy even when it was just Arnold’s name; so she’s not _really_ feeling them adding her name to mix. Except...maybe she could convince them to make “ _Arnoldandhelga_ ” a word in their vocabulary.

She’s thinking something like, _truest of true love_ , or something like that.

“Actually,” he hums and catches her hand with his. “Some of them are actually using a term I think I like even better— _Demigoddess_.”

Now, up to this point, Helga thinks she has done a _swell_ job keeping her monologuing locked up tight. For cripes sake, she hasn’t let fully loose since they left the states _on_ this insane trip. But, with everything that’s happened in the past 72 hours or so, things have built up.

So, hearing _Arnold_ using (agreeing with?) the term demigoddess in regards to _herself?_

She legitimately _does_ swoon into his arms this time.

“Whoa!” He catches her and laughs a little in confused delight. “Helga, are okay?”

She doesn’t move from his arms even as words begin bursting out of her, delirious and steeped in love. “ _Ohhh Arnold, mi amor, sunshine of my life, to hear that word from your lips is almost too much for my heart to take. All the poetry I have and will ever write will never be able to convey how much I love and adore you. My heart is yours, all I_ am _is yours, my soul is an open book for you to read and every breath I take is in worship of—”_

She comes back to herself with a start and jerks from his arms to sit on the ground.

Arnold hasn’t moved. His face is redder than she has ever seen it, from his forehead down to his neck. And there is…there’s a _dreamy_ looking smile on his face, one that slowly begins to fade as he seems to come to the realization that she is no longer in his arms.

Helga sincerely debates running away, rather than dealing with the fact that the boy she has loved since _pre-school_ just heard a full-blown monologue.

But that smile of his gives her enough staying power to stay seated. “Heh, hoo boy, that was—sorry, really…that’s been building up for a while.” She finds it in herself to joke weakly. “‘Least, this time I wasn’t ranting about, uh, ‘tearing my beating heart from my chest’. Though, in retrospect, that line is kinda ironic now, considering the whole _cure_ thing.” She gives a nervous giggle when he still has yet to say anything. “A-and, I s’ppose it’s less utterly batty than when I admitted to ‘stalking you night and day’ and building shrines of you…”

Silence.

Did she _break_ him?

Finally, after a long moment, he speaks. “W-well, I’m sticking by the demigoddess thing, ‘specially if _that’s_ how you’re gonna react to it. Wow.” There’s a bit of a crack to his voice, but the goofy smile is back in full force. He moves to sit down next to her, grabbing her hands with his. “You know Helga...you really have a way with words,” he says and then he gently tugs her forward to peck her on the cheek.

Yep. She broke him.

she doesn't mind, so much. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time!: Helga hasn't been avoiding Arnold's parents, honest. Plus, nightmares and a return back to the states. Just. Lots of angst, because these children were legit -traumatized- okay.
> 
> Also, I really did not mean to post this already. Curse these same-looking buttons!
> 
> I have no clue where this fic is going in the long run. I hope I don't run out of steam before I get to them in 6th grade, but I'm not optimistic by nature. 
> 
> (the Arnold in me is going to continue to hope tho)


	2. Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Traumatized children have nightmares and Stella Shortman is a goddess of a mom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Not so) Friendly reminder that these children saw a man fall to his death, on top of them almost dying several times, and are thus probably traumatized.
> 
> Someone has a nightmare near the end of the chapter that might be disturbing for some readers. It's in italics, but I'll put a ~~~ before and after, just in case. After the chapter I'll briefly describe it so you can get the gist of it if you don't read it.
> 
> I was very happy at the response I got from the first chapter. You all get virtual brownies. :)

Helga has not been avoiding Arnold’s parents, truly.

Sure, she tends to avoid going into rooms she knows they’re in. And, okay, sometimes—all the time—she leaves whenever they enter as quickly as she can. And— _fine_ maybe she’s not gone out of her way to speak with them. Like, at all.

It’s just, she’s not sure how she’s supposed act around them. Is she supposed to smile at them, sickly sweet, and pretend that she hasn’t been torturing their son since they were toddlers? Is she supposed to tell them that sometimes she used to sit and think about how much she _hated_ the thought of them—because who would abandon the most perfect child to go do…well, whatever it was they were doing?

But those are the _old_ thoughts. The thoughts she would have, before she figured out that they were _legitimately_ missing and not just deadbeats who couldn’t handle a child. She had felt a little guilty for those thoughts, when she had seen them laying still as death.

Now, it’s kind of painful to even look at them, for more than just the aforementioned reasons. _Now_ , it’s tragic. These people have missed the most formative years of their son’s life. They have missed seeing all the good Arnold does by simply existing.

But, it’s more than that.

Maybe, just maybe, part of her is simply flat out jealous.

Because, from what little she _has_ seen of Miles and Stella Shortman, she is certain they are going to be as perfect as their son is—as their entire zany, yet lovable family is. They are going to adjust to the years they have missed. They’ll be the kind of parents that are safe to ask for advice, that hug their kid and think about how lucky they are to have him. Parents that would never forget his name or if he had lunch, and care if their child got hurt or…or—

She _is_ jealous, so jealous she could just spit.

It is their fourth and last night in San Lorenzo, the second night since they rescued Arnold’s parents, and Helga can’t sleep. She’s in the sitting room of the hotel, reading, when she hears them. The quiet shuffle of someone hurrying down the hall.

She sees Arnold as he comes around the corner, but he doesn’t see her. His eyes are wide and frightened and wet; Helga’s stomach plummets.

Gerald (swearing her to secrecy) had told her that Arnold’s been having nightmares, and it looks like it’s happened again.

He’s looking around, but whatever it is he’s looking for, he’s not seeming to find it. His shoulders hitch in the beginnings of silent tears and Helga feels her heart break a little. She is moving to get up to comfort him, when the door nearest to the lobby—the only one she can see—opens and Arnold’s parents step out.

Immediately, his head snaps up to stare at them and then, with a quiet sob, he throws himself into their arms. They clutch at him tightly, running soft hands through his hair and over his back. The comfort seems to just make him cry harder.

Finally, when his breathing is back to simply hitching on every other breath, rather bringing on more tears, he speaks. She can only just hear his voice. “I thought you guys were d-dead. That we never—that you never—” The hitching gets worse again.

His mother’s expression is colored in love and concern. “Oh sweetheart, it was only a dream.” Her voice is not quite a coo, but it is filled with so much aching love that Helga can hardly stand to hear it. “You found us, we’re all safe.”

Arnold’s father begins humming something like a long-forgotten lullaby and the sound of it triggers another bout of tears.

“Can I…would it be alright if I—I stayed with you guys tonight?” Arnold asks after another moment, voice wet and cracking.

The two adults are near enthusiastic in their agreement, though it somehow still comes across as soothing.

After a moment’s hesitation, Miles scoops Arnold up to carry him into their room. Stella follows them in for a few seconds but steps back in the doorway, followed by Miles—arms no longer holding a football-headed kid. The couple share a quiet word. “I’m going to get him something warm to drink—it’ll calm him down. What d’you think, warm milk? Cocoa?”

Miles nods and then shrugs helplessly. “Dad and Mom’d probably know—they probably wouldn’t mind if you woke them?”

“Maybe. You go and sit with him. I’ll be back in a bit.”

She shuts the door with a quiet click.

Helga closes her book and stands. Her throat aches from the scene; partly because seeing the boy she loves upset is like a physical wound, but partly because she wants so deeply to have the option of that kind of comfort. She can’t remember the last time she felt safe enough to really cry in front of _anybody_ , least of all her parents.

At the sound of Helga’s book closing, Stella turns, blinking in surprise. “I didn’t hear you come in,” she says.

Helga shrugs uncomfortably and holds up her book. “Couldn’t sleep.”

The woman gives Helga a smile and beckons for her to follow as she begins walking to the communal kitchen.

The hotel the class is staying at is a rather nice one—and, Helga’s heard, paid for by the _real_ Helpers for Humanity, who are very sorry that their name was used to cause harm and who are _very_ happy that the Shortman couple are not dead, like was previously thought.

“He likes tea,” Helga finds herself saying, when Stella reaches to grab milk from the fridge.

The woman looks up in question.

“Arnold. He likes tea. I’ve seen him drink it sometimes, when he brings lunch to school and it’s cold out…” And, she doesn’t say, a few of times she’s “observed” him eating dinner. “I think it’s, like, green tea or something?” Helga shrugs again.

Stella beams at her. Her smile is extremely similar to her son’s. “Thank you, sweetie.” She sets the milk on the counter and begins peering through the cabinets. “You’re good friends with him,” she observes, pulling out a tea kettle and filling it with water. She chuckles. “ _Very_ good, if what happened the other day is any indication.”

Helga blushes and rubs the back of her neck, a little guilty. “Yeah, that’s…that’s pretty new. Us being friends, I mean.” Feeling like a doofus for standing around, she begins looking for the tea. “I’m kinda what you might call, uhm, the class bully—up until fourth grade I didn’t interact with him much, unless I was insulting him…In fourth grade, we started hanging out more, and I tried harder to be nice and then he f-found out that I, um, never really hated him in the first place—which, I mean, it’s a little impossible to hate him, it’d be like hating the moon…A-anyway…He’s just a…good kid. Arnold is a good kid. You’re lucky to have him.” She ducks her head a little, watching out of the corner of her eye as Stella puts together the mug of green tea. “Bit of milk and honey,” she suggests at a mumble and looks away when Stella smiles at her again. “And, he’s lucky to have you two back. I’m glad.” There’s definitely _not_ a bitter twist to her mouth at those last two words.

There is a warm hand on her shoulder and Helga looks up into concerned eyes. Her own flick away again, scowling at the ground. She doesn’t want pity.

The woman seems to realize this. “We’ve already said this to Gerald,” Stella says, switching tracks abruptly. “But, thank you for looking after our boy.”

Helga stares. “I just told you I used to—and sometimes still _do_ —bully your angel of a son and you’re _thanking me_?”

Stella just laughs a little. “You’ve been making an effort to stop, as you said, right?” Helga nods. “And Arnold has had a lot of good things to say about you, I trust his judgement.”

Incredulity drips from Helga voice. “What is it with you Shortmans?! I’ve bullied him since we were _three._ You should be forbidding me from seeing him! But no, his grandpa keeps inviting me to dinner and his grandma _adores_ me for some strange reason and now you! And Arnold’s _judgement_? I love that boy to death, but his judgement on people is _entirely_ too trusting and forgiving.” It is only after she observes the woman’s wide and amused smile for a moment, that she realizes what she’s just said. Helga bites down a groan. “Crimeny, I successfully kept that a secret for _six_ years and now I can’t seem to _stop_ revealing it.”

“Well, that must have been pretty difficult, keeping it to yourself for all that time. Sounds lonely.” Stella hands her a mug. At some point while they’ve been speaking, the woman has made up four mugs of tea.

Helga blinks rapidly around the sudden intrusion of tears burning in her eyes. She tries for a joke. “Now you sound like a cross between your son and my therapist.” And, of course, _that_ had to slip out as well. Goody.

“Sounds like a compliment,” Stella says simply. Helga is _painfully_ grateful.

They leave the kitchen, each holding two mugs. As they reach the woman’s room, Helga speaks. “Um. If you could not mention to Arnold that I’m in therapy…I mean, I’ll probably tell him at some point, but um…”

Stella’s eyes twinkle the exact same way that Arnold’s do. “I promise.” She taps softly on the door, and, after a moment, Miles opens the door. To his credit he doesn’t so much as blink at Helga’s presence, only takes the mug she silently offers.

Unable to help herself, she looks past him into the room, catching a glimpse of Arnold. He’s passed out, the only sign of his earlier distress the slight blotchiness of his face. She’s glad he’s okay.

Her eyes flit between his parents and then to the floor. “Well, goodnight, I guess.” She turns on her heel to leave.

“Helga,” Stella says. “If you ever need to talk…”

She turns to face them again, a cutting remark on the tip of her tongue, but stops at the look on the woman’s face. It is earnest and open and so _painfully_ reminiscent of her son’s face. Helga sighs heavily and gives the lady a grin that is only half forced. “Sure, maybe I can tell you some stories about growing up with Arnold.” She takes another couple steps down the hall and stops again. “Thanks,” she says and then makes her escape back to her room.

* * *

There are things Helga doesn’t tell Arnold. Not because she’s afraid he’ll break up with her or anything, but just things that he is better off knowing. Things that would break him a little bit more.

(Because none of them have come out of this little adventure unscathed. They have almost died, more than once. They have seen a man fall to his death. Bliss would probably say that they are dealing with trauma. Heck, she probably _will_ say that—undoubtedly, they’re _all_ going to need therapy after this.)

Helga doesn’t tell Arnold that not every adult survived the sleeping sickness. Sure, in the back of his mind he might know, but it hasn’t been brought to his attention. If she didn’t have the quality and tendency for snooping, she probably wouldn’t know either.

She had been quick to notice that none of the adults were elderly. And, after that detail, it was easy to see that there was a cluster of homes the American children were steered away from. Then, the tired grief that shone in almost every pair of green eyes that she’s looked into.

She can put two and two together.

But she keeps this to herself. If Arnold figures it out on his own, she will be there. But, otherwise, he is better off not knowing.

* * *

There is another big secret that Helga is keeping from Arnold ( _aside_ from her closet shrines and the like, the specifics of which she is planning on introducing to him one small tidbit at a time).

Helga’s family is not living at their brownstone house anymore. Bob was forced to sell it, halfway through Helga’s fifth grade year, when beeper sales took a major nosedive. They had packed up all their belongings and moved into the Beeper Emporium.

As far as the rest of her class is aware, Helga simply has a part-time job there, one that she is very diligent about going to.

(Well, Phoebe knows. But Phoebe knows pretty much everything there is to know about Helga.)

So, when Helga arrives back in Hillwood, she gets off the airport shuttle at the stop closest to her old street, waving goodbye to her friends for the night (and pointedly _ignoring_ the worried look on Phoebe’s face). Then, she walks the ten blocks back to the Beeper King’s domain.

Her parents and sister all got home well before her, of course, using the rental plane. _Olga_ had asked her if she wanted to come along, but Helga was more than happy to stick with her class. Her parents had barely spared her a glance.

She doesn’t bother announcing her arrival, just tosses her stuff in the repurposed office that serves as her room.

Of course, Olga, with her near omnipotent ability to materialize wherever Helga is to annoy her, pops up in her room the moment Helga is ready to crash in her bed and sleep for three days.

“ _Baby Sister_ , you’re back.” Olga’s squeal is the only warning Helga gets before the woman is bodily pulling Helga into a hug. “I missed you so much!”

Helga groans in annoyance. “Crimeny Olga, you literally saw me a  _day ago_.”

“But it feels like a long time!”

 _Not nearly long enough_ , she thinks, but bites her tongue to keep from saying it aloud. “Would you put me _down_? I’m tired and I wanna go to bed.”

Olga puts Helga down and gives her a pitiful look. “We hardly got to spend _any_ time together in San Lorenzo.”

Helga can’t hold back a sneer. “ _Yeah_ , because I was a little too busy fighting a _psychopath;_ such a shame that had to interfere with our _special bonding time_.”

“But even afterwards, I barely saw you.” The pitiful look has evolved into a full-blown pout.

 _Barely seeing you was the point_. The entire rest of their stay in San Lorenzo, where Olga went, their parents were likely to follow—coddling her, worrying about her, _loving_ her. Not to mention, her entire class _likes_ Olga. Helga really had not wanted spend that time being doubly ignored by her family _and_ friends. So, yeah, Helga had made it a point to not be wherever Olga was.

“I’m still going to exist in the morning, so can I _go to bed now_?”

Still pouting, but relenting, Olga leaves Helga to sleep. Thankfully. She’s exhausted from the plane ride, and now from fending off her sister, _and_ from the fact that she hasn’t been able to get to sleep before midnight the last couple of nights. But now, exhaustion finally overwhelms her just enough.

Which means that she’s in a deep enough sleep that her dream ensnares her quickly and without warning.

~~~

_The first thing she notices is that she can’t move. Her arms and legs are heavy, held down with some invisible weight. She can’t open her mouth to cry out for help, but she is able to look around. Something in the back of her mind says that she won’t want to, but she does it anyway._

_She shouldn’t be surprised to see the cruel grin of La Sambra, but the sight of him shoves Helga’s heart into her throat._

_He is the same bright, sickly green he was when he died, but the tiny hole where the poisoned dart hit him has gotten bigger. It is leaking blood at a steady rate, but the man doesn’t seem to notice. No, he is too busy beginning to stalk towards her._

_She can’t scream, but tears build and overflow in her eyes._

_Before the man can get too near, however, someone moves in front of her, arms outstretched and shielding. Arnold._ No _, she wants to yell, but she can’t._

_She is suddenly able to move her head and it turns to look at her father, who is watching this scene with an indifferent face. She wrenches her mouth open. “Bob, help us!”_

_Bob gives her an unimpressed look. “Whatever Olga, your sister’s getting ready to become leader of the free world, I’m late enough as it is. Don’t bother coming home.”_

_He walks away without looking back, even as Helga begins scream at him. “Bob, please! Bob! Dad! Dad come back!” He fades away._

_Crying, she turns back to watch Arnold and La Sambra again. The man has been approaching at a glacial pace and Arnold has just stood there. But now they are right in front of each other and La Sambra grabs the boy to hold his sword next to his neck. Arnold’s wide, frightened eyes are too familiar and she wants them to stop._

_“No, please, don’t hurt him,” Helga sobs. “Anything but that, please, anything but that.”_

_And then suddenly, Phoebe is beside the man and he grabs her instead. He presses his sword against her neck and pinpricks of blood appear._

_Helga_ wails _, begging her body to move. “No, no no no—please god no! Take me instead, please!”_

_“That is not one of your choices,” La Sambra says with a chuckle. “Make a decision, mija.”_

_But it feels like her tongue has been glued to the roof of her mouth. She can’t breathe, let alone speak. And she watches as Phoebe and Arnold stand docilly in front of the evil man—and now Gerald is there as well and she wishes she could scream again. All three of them stand stock still, eyes blankly accusing._

_There is the flash of silver and then of bright crimson and_ Helga jolts awake with a silent cry.

~~~

It takes her a few seconds to remember where she is, but by the time she realizes she is safe (her _friends_ are safe) she is sobbing.

Helga has had vivid dreams as far back as she can remember. She has always been fine once she woke up—even during that period of time when she thought she had monkeynucleosis and had had nightmares about that, she had assimilated them and gone on with her life, such as it was.

But this, far too close to real for comfort, still has its grip firmly on her throat. For one fourth of second, she considers going to her parents, but the thought brings on a harsh sob of a laugh. They would _not_ react like Arnold’s parents did, of that, she’s sure. Only half aware, Helga snatches her phone up from her bedside and dials. Her hand is sweaty on the plastic.

“…Helga?” Phoebe mumbles sleepily when she answers. From just her friend’s voice, some tension bleeds out of Helga’s shoulders. She sighs in relief.

“My bad, Phoebe, just wanted to make sure you got home okay,” Helga says with a wet chuckle. Never mind the fact that it’s two in the morning. She knows that Phoebe will allow her this deniability. “You can go back to sleep, see you tomorrow.”

“Sleeping,” Phoebe agrees with a yawn. “Good night.”

Helga feels a bit better, but she knows she won’t be completely placated until she _sees_ Phoebe and the boys. Tomorrow—or rather, later in the morning—she’s going to meet up with the other three at Arnold’s house. He had invited them to breakfast with his family. It had sent a giddy jolt through her that he was _inviting_ her over—like they were _actual_ friends…well, she and him were a little bit  _more_ than friends now. But still!

After breakfast, the plan is to head over to the school, where Mr. Simmons will be addressing the students, and the parents of the students, on the aftermath of the whole debacle in San Lorenzo.

She suspects that Dr. Bliss will be making an appearance. It will be nice to see her before Tuesday. Helga has a _lot_ to update her on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helga dreamt that she saw LaSambra kill Arnold, Phoebe, and Gerald. She asked her dad to help her but he walked away. 
> 
> I am not a fan of Big Bob Pataki:))
> 
> Next time!: Morning rituals, making breakfast, and Helga having a rather loose tongue.
> 
> Feel free to tell me what you want to see in this fic. I'm very open to ideas. I've got two months to fill with Stuff Happening. I've got the week the story's in right now planned out (it's Monday as of the end of the chapter). And I've planned stuff that'll happen towards the end of summer, but there's that middle bit...  
> SO YEAH. I welcome ideas, and if I use them, you'll get credit.


	3. Breakfast and a Bit of Bliss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helga takes a walk, makes and has breakfast, and then a group of four walk to the school even though it's still summer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Drowns in the love you people have showered me with* YOU ALL ARE AWESOME AND I LOVE YOU! I was actually going to wait to post this until Thursday (when I'll be done with college for the winter), but honestly all your responses to the last chapter were so overwhelming and lovely that I've decided to post today. 
> 
> Me @ Me: Please let these children rest and be happy right this second.  
> Also Me @ Me: But they are Traumatized and also I am sleep deprived so they will be too.  
> Me @ Me: Kara no  
> Also Me @ Me: Kara yes
> 
> Compromise, take some Shortman/Helga family bonding. Bc she's their future daughter-in-law and they adore her. Rightfully so.

Helga doesn’t end up going back to sleep.

She stays awake through the rest of the night, reading book after book from the stack she’d filched from Olga’s room years ago. They’re romance novels—the trashy kind,  _naturally—_ mixed in with AP literature books. Helga likes both kinds more than she cares to admit. Though perhaps, being that they were largely what she taught herself to read on, she’s biased.

By the time it is light enough outside for Helga to stop fooling herself on the idea of sleep, her brain feels like fried eggs on the sidewalk during the summer. (She and Phoebe had actually tested that particular urban legend out for themselves, and it hadn’t really held up, but she still likes the analogy.) Still in what she wore yesterday, she grabs her fresh clothes and some soap and leaves the store.

Big Bob’s Beepers does _not_ have a fully functioning bathroom: meaning, there’s no shower. Though there’s a small kitchen area, and spaces to sleep, if Helga wants to get truly clean—meaning, anything better than a sink bath, she has to go elsewhere.

Honestly, she’s a little unhappy to have to go back to this practice. The hotel their class had stayed at in San Lorenzo had had in-suite bathrooms. Over the few days, she got used to it and it spoiled her.

So, it is with some reluctance that she swings by the YMMA for a quick shower on her way to Arnold’s house. She likes the place well enough—during the hellish period of time when they were transitioning from _having_ a house, the majority of her time that wasn’t spent at Phoebe’s place had been passed at the Y.

She nods at the front desk lady as she comes in and as she leaves, but otherwise steers clear of other interactions.

The shower manages to energize her, if only a little. Thus, the walk to Arnold’s house is not unbearable, though she is back to blinking blearily by the time she gets there. She even manages to get there earlier than she’d planned.

Arnold’s dad is the one to open the door and he beams when he sees Helga. “Hi Helga, come on in—we’re just setting the table.”

Helga shuffles in awkwardly. “Can I help with anything?”

“If there’s anything _left_ to do,” Miles says. “Stella and my mother have things well in hand—if they can keep the arguing at a minimum, that is.” This last bit is said under is his breath and Helga has to strain her ears to catch it.

She raises her brow, even as she follows the man into the dining room. The three boarders are crowded around the table, hollering over each other. Helga holds back a flinch when she sees Mr. Hyuhn and averts her eyes towards the kitchen. She’s irrationally certain that, if she makes eye contact, he’ll know her part in Arnold’s Christmas gift from fourth grade.

(Not in the least, because she had met the man’s daughter before the woman made her way to the boarding house.)

She escapes into the kitchen. But she’s exchanged awkwardness for chaos. There’s flour _everywhere_ and Stella and Arnold’s Grandma are circling each other.

“Pancakes,” Stella insists.

“Eggs and toast,” Grandma retorts.

_“Pancakes_.”

“ _Eggs and toast_.”

“Um,” Helga says. The women immediately straighten and turn to smile at her.

“Hi Helga!”

“Hello, Eleanor! Breakfast will be ready in a moment.” Grandma turns to stare at Stella again, but her gaze has softened. “Stella, please, it’s only been a few days, your motor skills are not quite—”

Stella slumps and Helga notices, for the first time, the tremor in her hands and shoulders. (How’d she miss that the other night?) “You’re right. I just…wanted to make something for Arnold and his friends…”

She has that sad, resigned look that Helga thinks nearly matches Arnold’s. Helga’s glad it’s not directed at her, because she would cave immediately.

Arnold’s Grandmother, however, has had ten years of that look. She’s probably immune. “A compromise, French toast?”

Stella beams. “Okay.” She turns back to Helga. “Sorry Helga, what was it you needed?”

“I came in to, uh, do my part?”

The football-headed woman’s smile gets bigger. “Thank you, sweetie, you don’t have to—but if you’d like, you can whisk the eggs.”

Helga whisks the eggs.

It’s a surreal experience, cooking with Arnold’s mother and grandmother. Stella is humming and Grandma is laughing, and both of them pass Helga things to put in the egg mixture. Helga finds herself smiling easy. She imagines that this is the feeling that Olga tries (and fails) to cultivate whenever she pulls her family into meal preparation.

Eventually, the two women send her away to wait with the others. While she had been mixing, Gerald and Phoebe had shown up. And Arnold has finally joined the rest of the house, looking like he’s gotten about as much sleep as Helga has. The sight of all three of them loosens something that might be relief in her chest.

(She knows it’s irrational to be relieved that her nightmare hadn’t killed them; but when has Helga’s brain _ever_ been rational?)

As soon as Phoebe spots Helga, she scurries over with a worried face. “Helga,” she says in a low tone, trying to keep it out of earshot of the boys (both of whom are eyeing them questioningly). “Are you alright? After that call last night, I—”

Helga rolls her eyes (the action makes them ache a little) and claps a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “I’m fine Phoebs. I was just making sure you were safe, at home.”

The wording is just different enough from what she had said last night, that Phoebe’s face dawns in realization.

That done, Helga nods to the boys in greeting. “Hey, my bad. Howsit goin’ Football Head, Geraldo?”

Gerald shrugs. “It’s going, so I’m not gonna complain.” Up close, he looks a little tired as well.

Arnold gives Helga a smile, though his eyes seem to be distractedly flickering around her face. “I’m fine.” Then, whatever is distracting him apparently gets too much, because he changes the subject, “You have a bit of egg on your cheek.” And then he reaches up to swipe it away with his thumb. The movement is carefully gentle.

Helga’s face _inflames_ and she can feel her control draining away. She barely manages to joke, “Looks like the egg is _literally_ on my face, huh?”

Phoebe giggles.

“ _Ba dum tsh_ ,” Gerald says, miming beating a drum set. After a moment of silence though, they all end up staring towards the blond boy.

Arnold hasn’t moved his hand.

Helga is near vibrating in her desire to either shove him to the floor or sweep him up into a kiss far too old for their age.

(ergo, a kiss like the one she had given him on the roof of FTi.)

It takes Grandpa thumping loudly down the stairs—all the while, and equally loudly, complaining about the noise the boarders are making in the dining room—to make Arnold jerk back his arm like he’s been burned; rather what his face looks like, actually. His arm falls just as the old man arrives on the landing. From the cheeky grin on Grandpa’s face, that was the point.

Helga really likes Arnold’s Grandpa.

“Hey kids!”

“Hey Phil,” Gerald greets with a wave.

Phil sighs heavily at the use of his name but he doesn’t seem to actually mind. He beams down at the children. “We havin’ a party in here? You were all pretty silent for one.”

Three pairs of eyes unconsciously turn to Arnold, but Helga speaks up to prevent the boy from combusting. “Sup, Phil?”

The use of his name doesn’t even seem to faze him the second time, because he is now grinning in delight, like he hadn’t noticed her standing there. “It’s your little friend with the bow and the one eyebrow!”

“Grandpa!” Arnold blurts and then looks apologetically at Helga. “Helga, I am so—”

But Helga is laughing. “Did he say anything insulting?” She turns to his Grandpa. “Howya doin?”

The man cackles and pats her on the head—like she is a familiar granddaughter, rather than the girl who has bullied his grandson from day one. “Better than ever, little miss Pataki!”

Arnold stares between them in confusion. Helga can hardly blame him. As far as the boy knows, she and his grandpa have only met a handful of times, and they never seemed to completely click.

Seemed is the key word here though.

After the man caught Helga sneaking into the boarding house for the fifteenth time—some months after the end of fourth grade and the Sheck debacle, he finally sat her down and gave her an open invitation to come by— “And through the front door too! We can’t really afford another broken ceiling, heh heh heh.”—and she had found herself taking him up on that. Oh, only very occasionally, and only when Arnold was sure to be out of the house. But still, it was simply nice to have the option. Somewhere to go when she didn’t want to go back to her farce of a family.

“Uh?” Arnold articulates.

Helga raises her brow at Arnold and smirks. “What, does it bother you that me and your Grandpa are buddies?”

Arnold shakes his head, but before he’s able to voice whatever his thoughts on the subject are, Miles pokes a head through the door and says, “Breakfast is ready! French toast and hashbrowns!”

“Better get in there before the boarders _eat_ it all,” Grandpa says loudly and makes his way past the children.

“We heard that!” Ernie calls.

“Good, I meant you to!”

It’s a good breakfast. The best one that Helga can remember—not that there’s too much competition. Stella and Arnold’s Grandma made a whole mass of french toast and had dusted it in powdered sugar, so it looks like fresh snow. It’s a very pretty effect. Even the pile of hashbrowns and the condiments are set out neatly.

“The French toast is great, Stella, Pookie!” Grandpa tells them. He’s studiously ignoring the little bowl of raspberries his wife put by his plate. There’s fruit by every person’s plate, but they’re an assortment, rather than the single kind he’s gotten.

(Helga hasn’t touched hers either, having spied the strawberries in it just in time. When the other women aren’t looking, she makes eye-contact with the man and they subtly trade.)

Grandma gives a dismissive wave. “Oh, that was all Eleanor. She made them, Stella and I just fried them up.”

“I just mixed the eggs,” Helga says and slouches when all eyes turn to her. In particular, the way that Gerald is beginning to grin and the surprised smile on Arnold’s face are grating on her. She snarls in their direction. “You two Hair Boys better knock those grins off your faces before _I_ knock them off.” Then her stomach falls a little, because she has been trying _so_ hard not to bully in front of Arnold’s parents. Despite what she told Stella the other night, she doesn’t _actually_ want them to forbid her to see Arnold.

Oddly enough, though, Miles is beaming and perhaps chuckling a little. “Wow, she’s just like all those stories you used to tell me about mom picking on you, dad!”

Grandma cackles. “I have no _idea_ what you’re talking about, I was a sweet little girl and so is Eleanor. Why ever would I have _bullied_ your father?”

“ _Grandma is Gertie?_ ” Arnold blurts incredulously. He turns to look accusingly at his Grandpa. “You never told me that part!”

Grandpa holds up his hands. “I _told_ you the girl liked you, but you didn’t believe me. I decided you wouldn’t’ve been able to handle the end of that story.”

Helga raises her brow and stares Arnold down. “‘I’ve _always_ sort of wondered…’” she quotes, not quite mockingly (she can’t truly mock what amounts to his confession). “Always sort of wondered since your Grandpa pointed it out, huh?”

Ernie is stage-whispering to Mr. Hyuhn. “Breakfast and a show, eh?” The three boarders have been watching the conversation with great interest.

“Well, that aside,” Arnold says with a cough, completely dodging Helga’s question. “At least I figured it out before you, Grandpa! You said you and Grandma’s first date wasn’t until you were grown.”

Helga snorts loudly. “Because I _spelled_ _it_ _out_ for you, Football Head.” Phoebe is hiding a smile behind a hand. Stella raises an eyebrow at the nickname and unease immediately rises in Helga again.

Arnold sighs—rather fondly, in Helga’s opinion. “Whatever you say, Helga.”

The rest of breakfast passes without incident, but Helga is still glad to leave for the meeting.

(Which is saying something, since it’s likely to be about what happened in San Lorenzo and _that’s_ likely to aggravate the nightmares she’ll probably have when she eventually, inevitably passes out.)

The four kids are just heading out the door, when Helga is pulled aside by Stella. Helga waves the other children ahead. She thinks she knows what Stella wants to talk about.

Indeed, once the door has shut, Stella turns a blank face on Helga and asks, “‘Football Head’?”

Despite having seen it coming, Helga blanches—because _doi_ , the woman has the same headshape. “It’s a petname, I swear!” she blurts. She’s blushing a little, because she _had_ meant to say nickname. Still, best to stick with it, since it’s the truth. “He’s always seen it as an insult but I _always_ meant it as a petname—which, I mean, I _wanted_ him to see it as an insult so he wouldn’t realize I like the shape of his head—so I guess it still _counts_. But he’s the most handsome—most beautiful person I’ve ever known, so I—” Helga snaps her mouth shut so fast she bites her cheek. She has _got_ to stop with the uncontrolled ramblings—even though they’ve all been with people in the know.

Stella has given up the blank look for an amused one. “Okay, Helga.” Her eyes are twinkling. “My son _has_ grown up to be really cute, huh?”

“Sister, you have no idea,” Helga agrees fervently. Since she’s dug herself into this hole already, might as well stick around in it. “I could, quite literally, spend volumes of books about just his looks, without getting into that wonderful and squeaky-clean soul of his. But, I know I said that I’d tell you Arnold stories, but I _really_ don’t have the time right now.”

Stella waves her off, then she goes back to the dining room, leaving Helga to open the door. She stops.

The other three children are still on the stoop. And they’re staring. Well—Gerald and a heavily blushing Arnold are, anyway. Phoebe’s eyes are wide and pleading.

“We were waiting for you. I _tried_ to get them to leave when I heard you, but they wouldn’t budge. I’m sorry!”

Helga closes her eyes and breathes in through her nose. “It’s okay.” She turns to stare back at Gerald. “You are going to forget I said any of that and not bring it up to anyone, even me—unless I bring it first, which I won’t. Ever.”

She is quite proud of the way she kept her voice level. Evidently, Arnold is as well, because he’s smiling at her. His face is still bright pink, but he doesn’t make a comment about what he heard (thankfully). Instead, he holds a hand out. “Can I hold your hand?” he asks hopefully.

He looks like every innocent fantasy she’s ever had. His hand outstretched, wanting to display their happiness. Display the fact that he likes _~~loves~~_ her.

Helga sighs swooningly and almost agrees automatically, but, before she can grab his hand, her social fears slam into her and she jerks her hand back. “No!” But she can’t stand the hurt look the exclamation puts on his face. “I do _want_ to, Arnold—I just. Can’t, not around people who don’t know. Not yet.”

_Maybe not ever,_ she thinks with bitter worry.

The hurt look fades to be replaced by—what a _freaking surprise_ —concern. “Why?”

“Later. I’ll tell you later.” She brushes past him so she doesn’t have to look at him and feel guiltier.

“But Helga—!”

“Hey, man, leave it for now,” Gerald says. Helga blinks at the gentleness in his voices and spins to stare. Gerald’s face is serious, but he replaces it with casualness when he catches Helga looking. “We’re gonna be late. I wanna get this thing with Simmons out of the way.”

After a moment, Arnold nods.

Likely as a show of solidary, Gerald and Phoebe don’t hold hands either. They all walk side by side, probably crowding the sidewalk, but Helga’s okay with that.

“What do you think they’ll talk about?” Arnold asks, likely eager to pick up the conversation thread.

“Probably, they’ll remind us that the school has a psychologist and then _strongly_ recommend we go see her,” Helga postulates. And then wants to hit herself. Being the one to bring that up was an _idiotic_ move.

Why has her tongue been so _loose_ today?!

Then it hits her: her lack of sleep! She's already known that she reacts weirdly when something interferes with her normal sleeping pattern. It’s no wonder; her exhaustion is making her spill her guts to anyone she even remotely trusts.

Thankfully, Phoebe has her back (as Phoebe always does) and she takes up the conversation before the boys might question Helga’s knowledge on the subject. “We have experienced a great deal of psychological trauma—and many abrupt changes to our lives.” Phoebe finally grabs Gerald’s hand with her own. “It isn’t unusual that we would be having adverse effects, and thus need the services of therapy.”

Helga nods. That’s what she’s been figuring. The four of them digest this information as they walk. After a moment, though, she reaches over to flick Arnold’s ear.

“Ow! Helga, what was that for?” He rubs the harmed area with a wounded look.

“I could feel your guilt. Stop it.” Then, after a brief glance around to make sure it’s just the four of them, reaches out to lace their fingers together.

He beams confusedly. “I thought—”

She gives him a small, shy smile. “It's just for a little bit—since this area is so deserted.”

Indeed, once they reach the intersection, Helga drops his hand—and takes a couple steps away from him for good measure. Thankfully, this time he doesn't look upset for it.

When the quartet reaches the school, most of their class has already arrived. People mostly greet the other three, but a few people wave to Helga—which is, well. Confusing. But she nods in greeting to them anyhow.

She spots Rhonda getting out of a nice-looking car with her parents. The girl has artfully hidden the massive bald spot she’d gained, with a side-part and a large barrette. It actually looks quite nice like that—though, considering it’s Miss RhondaLloyd, it’s not surprising; the girl once made a _shower curtain_ look fashionable.

“My parents are gonna come with Grandpa in the car,” Arnold says, as they approach the steps of the school. “They wanted to walk with us, but they still get tired pretty easy. Grandpa had to bully them into it.” He looks at the ground, his face guilty and shifty. “And...they’ve been kept up pretty late the last couple nights.”

Helga and Gerald share a glance over the blond boy’s shoulder.

Not noticing, Arnold brightens. “But since they have the car, they said they’ll take us to the movies afterwards!”

On that much happier note, the four make their way into the lunchroom, where the meeting is going to be held. Simmons is on the far side of the room, still looking a little frazzled, and clutching the hand of his boyfriend, Peter, like a lifeline. The two are talking with Dr. Bliss.

Helga kind of wishes she could go say ‘hi’, without anyone finding out that she’s been in therapy for the last two and some years. Still, she’ll see the woman tomorrow. She can wait.

By the time she, Gerald, Phoebe, and Arnold have found a table, Arnold parents and Grandpa have arrived. Stella pats Helga on the shoulder as she sits down and puts an arm around Arnold. The boy doesn’t look the least bit embarrassed by this, instead he leans into it. Miles gives them all a kind smile.

“Will your parents be coming to this, kids?” he asks.

Helga snorts.

“My dad and mom won’t be able to make it until later,” Phoebe says. “They couldn’t get out of their shift at the hospital. If they’re unable to make it to the majority of the meeting, they’re going to arrange a separate one with Mr. Simmons.”  
Gerald shakes his head. “And both my parents have work all day—I bet they would’ve forced my brother, Jamie-O, to come for them, but he had to watch my little sister.” He doesn’t sound the least bit sorry about this. He and Arnold share a tired look and speak together. “Ugh, _Jamie-O_.”

Stella giggles. “Overbearing older sibling? I know plenty about that.”

Arnold raises his eyebrows. “Aunt Isabelle was a mean older sister?”

Stella taps a finger to her chin. “Oh, I don’t know about _mean_. Just. A little, _high strung_ , you might say. Always nosing in on my business, crashing my sleepovers, teasing me about boyfriends—but she really mellowed out once she got married. Like her husband.”

“ _Mellow_ is one word for that man,” Miles mutters. “Creepy might be a better one.” Stella gently swats his arm.

“ _That_ explains Arnie,” Helga and Gerald say together. They grin at each other.

Grandpa snickers.

Then, Helga hums in thought. “If marriage mellowed out _your_ sister, maybe it’ll get mine too.” She puffs out a laugh. “Unlikely, but maybe I’ll take a page out of Arnoldo’s book and be optimistic.”

She’s still not going to hold her breath.

The conversation comes to an end as Mr. Simmons calls for attention. “U-um, thank you all for coming out here this morning. I know—I know many of you kids must still be tired from the flight, so thank you for finding the time.” He fidgets with his planner—it’s a new one—and takes a deep breath. “Now, parents…As—as your children might have told you, we encountered a danger that we couldn’t have accounted for, a hostage situation. It was an ex-extremely scary event, but I am proud to say that these children displayed bravery and smarts well beyond their years. Still, they are children and the whole affair would be enough to scar an _adult_.”

_Three guesses as to who the scarred adult is_ , Helga thinks. Simmons looks half a breath away from hyperventilating. Peter’s hand on his back seems the only thing keeping him from having a complete meltdown.

Bliss saves him from being forced to speak more by stepping forward herself. “As such, the school is offering the services of counseling.” Her face is calmly serious. Helga has never seen her lose her cool, and she’s starting to doubt she ever will. “You have all gone through something that not many children have. You don’t need to shoulder what has happened by yourself. Even if you choose to not go to counseling, try to find someone you trust to talk to. A parent or guardian, your friend or your classmates; they might not have all the answers, but even getting out your feelings could make you feel better. And if you ever _do_ wish to talk with me or any other therapist, the office at my clinic is open until nine PM—and, caregivers, there is a 24-hour call service for emergencies.”

She picks up a stack of papers.

“I’m passing out some information and the number for my clinic to each one of you—so that, if you want my help, but don’t want to ask for it in front of your peers, you can ask later.” She begins rounding each table, setting a slip by each child and parent—Helga suspects that Bliss knows that many of the children are likely to lose or “ _lose_ ” their slip.

Even two years ago, Helga probably would have been one of them. She would be like Sid and Harold, who are already turning their slips into paper airplanes. _Now_ , Helga has to hold back a beam when Bliss comes round to her table. Helga ducks her head instead, hoping Bliss won’t single her out. She doesn’t, of course.

Bliss smiles kindly at all of them. “It’s good to see you children again. It’s nice to officially meet you, Mr. Shortman—and you two must be—?” She is looking at Arnold’s parents with polite interest.

They smile and Miles holds out a hand. “I’m Miles Shortman and this is my wife, Stella. We’re Arnold’s parents.”

If Helga had not known Bliss for two years, she wouldn’t have noticed the slight widening of the woman’s eyes—the indication that she was surprised. She smiles and shakes Miles’ hand and then Stella’s as well. “Well, it is wonderful to finally meet you. I’m glad your son found you.”

Bliss knows as much as Helga does, just how important finding his parents was to him. Helga had gone to her right before leaving for San Lorenzo—to spill her guts about the whole affair; along with her worries about it and her worries about Arnold’s ongoing lack of reaction to Helga’s confession, so many months before. Bliss was, of course, used to such a session. Helga has dedicated more than a couple sessions to just talking about Arnold. Bliss probably knows more about Helga’s feeling for Arnold than even _Phoebe_. So, perhaps, Bliss has gained a sort of second-hand wish for Arnold’s happiness, through Helga.

Arnold, maybe, looks slightly confused at the sincerity in Bliss’ voice. However, Bliss doesn’t acknowledge that she made a slip up. Instead, she continues to speak, turning to Phoebe and Gerald. “Will your parents be attending today’s meeting?”

The two children give the same answer they gave Miles. Bliss turns her gentle smile on Helga. “And what about you…Helga, wasn’t it?” Her eyes are twinkling with disguised mirth.

Bliss is _so_ boss.

Helga has to hide her grin behind a fake sneeze. “Nah, they’re. Busy.” Helga, of course, had not bothered to ask them. She knows what their answer would have been—it would have possibly been a _worse_ blow up than when Helga had started attending therapy.

Bob still calls her a nutjob sometimes.

“Well,” Bliss says brightly. “I believe I can trust you three to give these papers to your parents.” She looks at all of them. “Thank you again for taking time to come to this. If any of you need anything—help dealing with what you’ve gone through, or adjustments—” Her eyes might flicker to Arnold’s parents for half a moment. “—please feel more than welcome to schedule an appointment. And if I’m not with a client, I take walk ins.” She nods. “Again, it was nice to see you.”

When she walks away, Arnold tilts his head at her back. “I wonder how she knew about my parents,” he says. Helga freezes in her act of turning to speak to Phoebe. “I’ve never said more than a couple words to her…”

“It was—” Helga blurts before biting down on her tongue, so she doesn’t say ‘ _me’_.

She _seriously_ needs to sleep, and _soon_.

Everyone looks at her. Mostly, they all look like they’re just waiting for her to finish her sentence, but Phoebe and Stella both look concerned—which makes sense, being that they’re the only two who know about Helga being a headcase in need of a shrink. She takes a breath. “It was probably Simmons. You know him…What…a chatterbox—heh.” The delivery of the words is weak, but the group takes them with no suspicion.

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Arnold agrees, smiling at her. The pure trust in his eyes forces guilt to burn like acid in Helga’s stomach.

She’ll tell him, eventually. Really.

She just needs to figure out how to say it…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear, I am trying to get past the angsty stuff but. I am angst. Honestly, I want to try and write through the week before I hit chapter 10, but it's not looking like that's going to happen...Monday goes through to chapter 5....
> 
> One note: the YMMA is the show's parody of the YMCA.
> 
> Next chapter!: Let's go to the movies! But...perhaps seeing a horror movie wasn't the -best- plan in the world...
> 
> As for when I get the chapter out....might be next week. I'm gonna have to spend all weekend catching up on homework before the 17th. College is kicking my butt and I don't like it.  
> (Though, I'm a stress writer, so I might work on this when hw, inevitably, gets overwhelming.)


	4. Movie Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They all go to the movies and something hits a little too close to home. Stella continues to be a goddess among mortals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Friday!
> 
> Yeah, you know how I said Arnold was probably going to learn stuff? I'm a liar, that'll probably happen in the next chapter. Where Monday will -finally- freaking end. Ugh. 
> 
> I don't know jack-diddily about horrors movies, sorry. But I do know panic attacks, so stay tuned for that in this chapter.
> 
> Thank you for all your kind comments, they mean the world to me!  
> Also, thank you to the people who wished me luck for college. I got a B on my Japanese Lang. final, and an A in the class, so I guess it worked:D  
> (crossing my fingers that I actually pass my English class tho.........I'm very much not good at nonfiction papers ;-; ugh)
> 
> (I kinda hate this chapter .-. )

The large group departs the school, after Phoebe arranges a meeting for her parents with Simmons. They all pile into Grandpa’s Packard. There’s just enough room, but Helga finds herself squished between Phoebe and Arnold.

She’s not really complaining.

The press of warm (and _safe_ ) weight is making her drowsy—well, _drowsier_. The fact that she’s only gotten a few hours of restless sleep in the last twenty-four hours is really starting to catch up with her. Her head droops and dips a couple of times, before she finally just pinches the soft inside of her elbow, hard.

“Helga, what are you doing?” Arnold whispers, putting a gentle hand on hers to stop the action.  His breath is warm on her ear.

It’s _really_ not helping.

“Keeping myself awake, _doi_ ,” she mutters back. “It’s so hot today that it’s making me tired.”

He looks at her for a long moment, his forehead scrunching up. She kind of wants to smooth it out. “Helga, have…have you been having nightmares too?”

Helga whips her head to face the front, completely ignoring the question. She titters nervously and with relief as the car comes to a stop in front of the movie theater. “Hey look, we’re here!”

She is scrambling out, the moment that Phoebe has stepped from the car. Of _course_ , she trips over her own two feet in doing so. Helga waits to hit the ground. It never happens. After a long moment spent tense with unhappy anticipation, Helga opens her eyes and realize she’s in someone’s arms.

“Helga, you okay?”

She looks up into the big, brown eyes of her rescuer. The way he has caught her reminds her being dipped in a tango, back in fourth grade. She can’t help but start to snicker at the thought, even as she’s straightening up.

“Yeah, I’m good, Geraldo. Thanks for the save,” she says.

A couple walks by, just as Helga claps a hand on Gerald’s shoulder in thanks, and one of the women giggles. “What a cute little couple!”

Immediately, Helga and Gerald are a foot away from each other, cringing in unison. In that time, Arnold has finished getting out of the car. He and Phoebe are by Helga’s side in the next instant.

“Helga,” they both say worriedly. Their eyes are wide in worry, but Helga thinks she might see something _else_ in Arnold’s that she can’t quite discern.

Phoebe puts a hand on Helga’s arm. “Are you feeling unwell?”

Helga waves them both off. “You’re both a bunch of worrywarts, I just said I was good. Quit crowding me.”

Phoebe still looks worried but immediately takes a couple steps back. “Quitting,” she says, with a sigh.

Arnold stares at her for a few moments longer, before he nods. He looks a little unhappy about something, but it doesn’t click with Helga _why_ , until she notices the boy flick his eyes from her to Gerald and back again.

Arnold is… _jealous_?

Helga holds back both an eyeroll and a giddy grin. _Ohh_ , _how the tables have turned._

Before she can say anything, Stella and Miles get out of the car. They are smiling in amusement at the children, but hold their tongues on the situation. Instead, Miles says, “So, what movie are you kids planning on seeing?”

“The new Evil Twin is out,” Arnold says in suggestion, though he is unsuccessfully holding back a slightly sullen look that flickers between Helga and Gerald.

Helga is going to ignore it for the moment. She has a plan, though. “Sounds good to me—Okay with you, Phoebs, Geraldo?”

Gerald grins. “Nothing like a good Evil Twin movie to scare you outta your wits.”

Phoebe’s nod, while slightly hesitant, is sincere. “I concur. The effects are always well done.”

Miles looks surprised. “That series is still going on? Last I heard, the third movie hadn’t done so well. I thought it was cancelled.”

Helga waves a hand. “They rebooted it a couple years ago. There was a cult following that really rallied for it and got it renewed. The first new movie came out when we were in third grade. Practically our whole class likes them.”

Stella raises an eyebrow and crosses her arms. “Last _I_ heard, those movies were PG-13.”

Uh oh. Helga thinks she might see where this is going. She shares a nervous look with Phoebe. In fifth grade, Helga had briefly gotten in trouble with Phoebe’s parents for convincing her to go see the third Evil Twin. It had been nearly a week before Phoebe was allowed to spend time with Helga again—after Phoebe convinced them that the two girls were both old for their age and thus mature enough to handle PG-13 movies by themselves.

Like that time, Phoebe speaks up. “Mrs. Shortman, the four of us have always been rather mature for our age—we all read well above our age level and have dealt with plenty of situations that many kids our age would not have been able to. Therefore, I don't believe it's wrong for us to see movies that are PG-13.”

Stella blinks at the bespectacled girl. Helga hides a grin behind a hand. People are always rather blown away by Phoebe, when she’s willing to argue about something.

The two adults look a little mollified.

Arnold shrugs. “Plus, this time at least, you guys will be here too, right?”

Miles and Stella silently communicate with each other, before the football-headed woman nods. “I suppose that’s fair.”

“Popcorn’s on me,” Miles adds brightly.

Helga is more than fine with that. She grins at Arnold and he smiles back. After a moment, however, his face falls back into that frustrated (at himself?) and slightly put-out look.

Ah, yeah. His jealousness. Which is both flattering—no one has _ever_ gotten jealous over _Helga_ before—and also something she plans to nip in the bud immediately.

Helga knows from experience: jealousy, especially the unwarranted kind, is never fun to deal with.

As the four children walk, Helga turns to smirks wryly at Gerald. “Pretty funny what that one chick said about us back there, about us bein’ a couple, huh Tall-Hair Boy?”

Arnold’s head snaps up to stare between them. Phoebe is also observing, though she looks more amused than anything.

(Phoebe knows, full well, that Helga has never even thought of anyone who wasn’t Arnold, in a romantic sense.)

Gerald snickers. “Oh man, can you even imagine?”

Helga gives a theatrical shudder. “ _No_. We may be friends now, Geraldo, but I can’t even—you might as well be a _brother-in-law_!”

At that, Gerald stops laughing to give her an incredulous look. He’s not the only one; Phoebe and Arnold are both staring. The blond boy has lost the jealous face, though, which is what Helga was going for. But Phoebe has gone pink. She probably sees where Helga is going to go with this train of thought.

“How so?” Arnold asks. He sounds genuinely curious, now that he has lost that little bit of jealousy. Helga grins at him.

“Well, Phoebe is all but my sister—heck, she’s closer to me than my _actual_ sister. So, by proxy, Gerald is whatever the preteen-dating equivalent of a brother-in-law is.”

Phoebe and Gerald look like they might spontaneously combust. Arnold is trying to hide a snicker behind a not-very-disapproving disapproving look. “ _Helga_.”

Helga shrugs unapologetically. “These two have been all-but dating since fourth grade—they’ve just never admitted it to themselves. I don’t think callin’ Tall-Hair Boy an in-law is _too_ out of bounds.”

Gerald huffs, still blushing furiously, but holds his head high and takes Phoebe’s hand (she squeaks). “Well, if we’re gonna be in-laws Pataki, then I expect birthday and Christmas presents.”

Helga cackles. “As long as this gift giving goes both ways, bucko, then you gotta deal.”

She watches in amusement as Arnold and Phoebe share a tired but fond look. Something like, _these are the people we’ve chosen to be with_.

The theater is pretty empty. Which isn’t surprising. It’s a Monday afternoon, most adults are at work and most kids are probably playing outside in the sunshine.

Helga figures she and the others get a pass on that, given that they’ve just spent the last week doing the _ultimate_ ‘playing outside’.

So, the little group have the theater mostly to themselves. As they enter the dark room, Helga feels safe enough to take Arnold’s hand. In the low light, she sees him beam and he squeezes her hand.

Arnold’s parents sit a couple of rows behind the little group. Probably, they don’t want to cramp their son’s style. Helga’s more than fine with that. With the adults as far away as they are, Helga feels no embarrassment at snuggling into Arnold a little. He certainly doesn’t complain.

The first half of the movie is fine. It’s the typical, run-of-the-mill horror movie plot: brainless teenagers on a hike begin getting knocked off. It’s less gory than the third Evil Twin, but there’s more jump-scares. It’s fun. Helga’s had the blond couple pegged for death the instant she saw them.

Sure enough, halfway through the movie, the blonde girl gets axed in front of her boyfriend.

Things take a turn for the worse, though—in both the movie, and with Helga, during the third act. The blond boy has been captured by the bad guy and has been tied up to watch as the guy kills the rest of his friends. Helga’s stomach jumps into her throat, because it’s a little too similar to her dream last night.

But. It’s fine. Helga can handle this. She loves horror movies. If she starts being scared of them now, it means La Sambra wins.

But then it turns out that the blonde girl isn’t _actually_ dead—it was the girl’s twin who was killed. And the bad guy has promised her that he’ll spare her boyfriend if _she_ kills the rest of the group.

Helga is beginning to have trouble breathing. Her grip on Arnold’s hand has been getting tighter and tighter throughout the scene, and at this point, she just pulls her hand away so she doesn’t crush his.

“Helga?” Arnold whispers.

She grimaces, unseen in the dark. “Uhh, I’m gonna go get a refill on my soda.”

Helga flees into the lobby, not even taking her cup with her.

The bathroom is empty when she stumbles into it. The moment the door is closed behind her, she slides to sit on the floor (only a small part of her brain can focus enough to be thankful that the room is kept clean). Her breath is coming out in short, uneven bursts. She wraps her shaking hands around her arms and tries to remember what Bliss taught her about panic attacks.

Helga had asked her on an idle curiosity—and also because she knew she was prone to anxiety. She’s never actually had one before now, as far as she can tell. But, she can’t focus enough to remember what Bliss told her.

Her chest hurts, and the low dizziness she’s been feeling all day (from her lack of sleep) has taken a turn into room-spinning vertigo.

After about a minute, she distantly hears the door open and someone crouches down next to her. It’s Stella. The woman puts a gentle hand on top of Helga’s head. “Sweetie, you’re going to be okay. Everything will be fine. Can you breathe in for me? Try to breathe in for four seconds and then breathe out for seven, okay? Can you try that for me?”

Helga tries. It takes a couple attempts, but after a while, she can feel her breathing slowing down.

“Good girl. Now, I want you to tell me five things you can see.”

Helga speaks in hitches and starts. “…You. The—the mirrors…the lights. Um. The…soap dispensers. That…that dumb poster on the door.” Helga focuses on it, on its overly cheerful woman and the bag of popcorn she’s inexplicably dancing with. The ludicrousness of it is somehow calming.

Stella is stroking her hair and Helga finds herself leaning into it. “Good, good. Now, describe four things you can feel.”

“Floor…’S cold. My dress, it’s. Soft…Your hand, warm…” Helga reaches up to clutch at her neckline. “My…my Arnold locket. Feels…like safety.”

Stella switches which hand is doing the stroking and wraps her free arm around Helga in a loose hug. “You’re doing wonderful, Helga. How about two things you can smell?”

Helga laughs wetly and is, once again, absurdly glad that the room is so clean. “Soap. And…jasmine?” The last one confuses her a bit.

Stella gives a gentle giggle. “You have a good nose. That’s me. Now, what about what you taste?”

Helga gives her a weak grin. “Mouth still tastes like popcorn.” Then, suddenly, she is tearing up a little. “I feel so stupid,” she mutters.

Stella squeezes her shoulder. “You’re not stupid. You’re a very intelligent girl, who has gone through something scary. It’s not a surprise that it would change how you react to things.”

“You didn’t see Arnold or Gerald or Phoebe running out of there like their feet were on fire,” Helga says sullenly and resists the urge to pull away from the hug. She’s not used to the comfort and she feels weak for needing it.

“And people react in different ways,” Stella continues, not deterred. “What would your therapist have to say?”

Helga slumps and sighs. “She’d tell me that the way I’m reacting is normal—and that I’m probably not helping myself with my messed-up sleep schedule.”

Stella hums in contemplation. “She was that nice lady from the school, wasn’t she? I knew she seemed smart.”

Helga nods. They sit in rather comfortable silence for a few moments.

Then, Stella gets to her feet and helps Helga up. “The movie is probably near to ending. Do you want to get a snack while we wait for the others?”

Arnold’s mom is awesome. Honestly, if Helga didn’t love the boy so much, she would wish for the Shortmans to adopt her. Oh well, Helga is patient. If she can wait eight years for the love of her life to like her back, she can wait another nine to get his family as family-in-laws.

“Do you think I should tell Arnold about me being in therapy?” Helga asks, when they are sitting in the chairs next to the snack bar. “There’s a lot I need to tell him, but should I maybe start with that?”

Stella munches on popcorn in thought. “Well, that’s up to you. You know he wouldn’t look down on you for it, but it’s still your choice.”

“Somehow, I knew you were gonna say that,” Helga grumbles, rolling a piece of popcorn between her thumb and forefinger. After thinking for a bit, she says, “I think I’ll try and sleep on it tonight and then tell him tomorrow, after my meeting with Bliss.” She smiles wryly. “If I tried to tell him right now, I might spill a little too much. Apparently, I have a loose tongue when I’m exhausted.”

“That’s very mature of you,” Stella says approvingly.

Not long after that, Arnold comes out of the theater. Through the swing of the door, Helga can see the still ongoing movie and she raise her brow.

He’s fidgeting nervously, but his eyes are relieved when they fall on her. When he makes his way over to the two ladies, he is quick to lace his fingers with Helga’s. “I thought you might have left,” he says quietly. “Did I do something wrong?”

Helga’s heart wrenches in guilt and she spares a glance towards Stella, trying to plead with her eyes: _What do I do_?

Stella is not a mind reader. “I’ll leave you two to talk. I might go see if Dad is back out front yet.”

The woman leaves Helga alone with her worried and oblivious boyfriend. Great.

She sighs. “No Arnold, you didn’t do a thing wrong. It was just me being a spaz, as per usual.”

“You’re not a spaz,” he denies gently.

Helga rolls her eyes with a scoff. “Oh darling, you have _not_ been paying enough attention if you really believe that.”

He goes a bit pink at the petname (which is always wonderful to see, no matter how bad a mood Helga’s in) but his eyes are still intense. “I have been paying attention, Helga. For the past year, I’ve watched you. You’re passionate and abrasive and creative and loyal and funny, and maybe kinda mean, but you’re _not_ crazy.”

She wonders briefly what he would say if she told him, _I’m a legitimately mentally ill person, and you don’t think I’m_ crazy _?_

Helga’s not gonna test her luck. “If you believe that,” she sighs. Her fingers are still laced with his and she focuses on the feeling. His hands are softer than hers. Less violent than her, so less callouses. “Thank you though. I think you’ve given me more complements in the last week than I’ve had in the last nine years of my life combined.”

He squeezes her hand. “Well, I’ll just keep them up then.” And his eyes are so earnestly loving that something like calm and contentment settles in her chest.

She loves this boy more than she can put into words.

Helga stands up. If she maybe stumbles a little, Arnold is kind enough not to point it out. He simply holds tightly to her hand.

It is at this point that Helga realizes that the movie has finally ended. Gerald, Phoebe, and Miles are exiting the theater. The man looks ecstatic.

“Enjoy the movie, did you?” Helga manages to ask with a grin.

“The effects were so much _better_ ,” the blond man enthuses. “It’s been ten years, but it feels closer to twenty!”

Gerald and Phoebe are a little more subdued than Miles is, but they are still talking excitedly to each other.

“What about when they—?”

“—oh yes! And when she—”

“—Right?!”

Helga snickers at the way they’re all but finishing each other’s thoughts. She turns back to look down at Arnold. “So what now, Football Head?”

“Yeah, Arnold,” Gerald agrees, as the little group becomes one again. “What’s the plan?”

“We could go to the park?” Arnold suggests, but he sounds a little unenthusiastic about his own plan.

“Would it be cool if just went back to your place and vegged for a bit?” Helga says. She has been waiting for an opportune moment to say so, because she is _so_ tired.

The other three children immediately look relieved.

“That’s good with me,” Arnold says. Gerald and Phoebe both nod.

It’s even warmer outside than it had been when they had gone into the theater. Helga dozes in the car a little, slumped against Arnold. Thankfully, she doesn’t dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter!: Naps are finally had and Arnold finally gets some info. Or in other, related, news, Arnold Shortman is an angel:]
> 
> If Stella seemed sort of calm in the face of Helga having a panic attack, remember that she's a trained medical professional, and she's been shown in the show as good at dealing with distressed children. Add it to the long list of things that make her Boss AF.


	5. Not the Standard Nap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Helga has a flashback-esc dream that turns into another nightmare, Arnold gets a little info, and two tweens spend most of the chapter holding hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wishing you all well!
> 
> Helga spends a good, long portion of this chapter asleep. 
> 
> Warning for another nightmare. I'll put the three ~ again when it starts and ends, just in case. I'll briefly describe it at the bottom.

It seems like, in the time it takes to blink, the car has arrived back at Arnold’s house. Helga’s head has somehow ended up on Arnold’s shoulder. When she turns her neck to look at him, he is smiling that gentle, half-lidded smile of his.

“Hi,” he whispers. “Do you feel a little better?”

Helga sits up immediately. She has to bite back her first response, a biting rebuttal. It’s not easy. It’s only been a week, she’s tired, and she’s still very much not used to this. After another breath, she speaks, slowly and purposefully. “A bit, yeah.”

It’s not a lie. It could have only been a five-minute drive from the theater to here. But, already, her eyes ache less and the dizziness has subsided to bearable. It probably didn’t hurt that her pillow had been _Arnold_.

“I’m glad,” he says, getting out of the car and offering her a hand.

Helga takes it and gets out of the car. Thankfully, she doesn’t trip like last time, due to Arnold’s firm hold on her hand. Which is, more than likely, why he’d done it in the first place. She gives him a faux annoyed look. “If I wasn’t tired, Football Head, I’d slug you for treating me like a fainty southern belle.”

“ _Sure_ you would, Helga,” Gerald says, as he and Phoebe come up beside the blondes.

She raises her brow and looks at him deadpan. “I might have just enough energy to slug _you_ , on the other hand.” That gets her two reproachful stares from her two weak spots and a snort from the Tall-Hair Boy. “Oh, _whatever_.”

Arnold’s Grandma has lunch ready when the group go inside, and she’s there to greet them at the door. She’s decked out in full military uniform, though she beams brightly at them all. She snaps a salute.

Grandpa groans when he sees her. “Now, where did you dig that ol’ thing out, Pookie?”

Grandma cackles. “Never you mind, Private Shortman. Grub’s on, come sit your patootie down.”

The woman has made sloppy joes. It’s the kind of hearty, messy, get-all-over-yourself meal that Olga would _never_ make. Helga loves it, of course.

Helga doesn’t even really care that she probably has sloppy joe on her face. She thinks she should probably be embarrassed to eat something like this in front of Arnold, but she can’t find it in herself to.

In fact, as she finishes the sandwich, Arnold reaches over to dab at Helga’s mouth with a napkin. When she stares at him in surprise, he blushes brightly and drops the napkin. “Sorry.”

“It’s…it’s fine,” she waves him off, though her face feels as hot as his looks.

As the four children leave the dining room after lunch, Gerald shakes his head and intones, “ _Cavities_ , you guys. I swear, I will send you my dentist bill.”

Helga can still feel herself blushing, but she scoffs. “Pot, meet kettle,” she says, without animosity. “You and Phoebs were practically finishing each other’s sentences back at the theater.”

Like she expects them to, the couple blush and Gerald stammers for a moment before he drops the subject.

They all make their way up to Arnold’s room.

Just like being invited to his house, being _allowed_ to go into Arnold’s room— _invited_ —is something of an experience. She kind of has to resist the urge to giggle wildly and spin around the room, when they’ve gone inside. Even still, she makes a beeline for Arnold’s bed and lounges on it immediately (and if she maybe turns her head to smell his pillow, well, she’s quick enough that the other three don’t notice). She bites back a swooning sigh.

Arnold has gone pink at Helga so casually laying down, but he seems to push it back after a moment and sits at the foot of the bed. Phoebe and Gerald sit down on Arnold’s couch, holding hands, but with enough space between them as to fit another person.

Being in a comfortable environment, and being pretty much past exhaustion, Helga is highly tempted to fall asleep. She’s worried that she’ll have a nightmare, but the sleepiness is winning out.

She’s only half tracking the conversation going on between the other children. She’s content to listen to the murmur—and occasionally throw in a snarky comment or two, because she’s still herself. However, after a few times spent blinking with increasing heaviness, at some point her eyes slip closed and stay that way.

~~~

_The dream starts off with a memory, one she had forgotten. One she’d forgotten on_ purpose _. One she didn’t want to ever remember._

_Helga’s seven. She’s just gotten home from school, her stomach grumbling traitorously from her lack of lunch. The house is eerily silent when she arrives, but she’s used to that. Olga moved out last year, and Bob is always at work. As for Miriam, she sleeps a lot more now that Olga’s left._

_She’s sleeping now, as Helga comes in. Normally, Helga would be content to ignore the woman and go up to her room. However, she’s_ starving _and she’s not yet tall enough to work the stove properly._

_“Miriam,” Helga says. She’s recently started calling her parents by their first names, because they don’t act like she knows parents should act—like her friend Phoebe’s parents do. Helga parents hadn’t even really cared, of course. “Miriam, wake up, I need something to eat.”_

_Miriam doesn’t stir. Rolling her eyes, Helga walks over to the prone woman and reaches out to shake her. And. Stops._

_Her mother is a sickly pallid color. She’s sweating and breathing kind of funny. Clutched in the woman’s hand is the flask that Miriam thinks Helga doesn’t know about. When she tugs it from her grip, the thing is empty._

_Something like terror chokes her, but Helga tries to wake her up. “Miriam, get up, you need to get up. This isn’t_ funny _Miriam. Wake up.”_

_But Miriam doesn’t. So, with angry and terrified tears building up in her eyes, Helga calls 911—like her teacher had taught the class earlier in the year._

_The paramedics would come to take Miriam away, and she would spend a week in the hospital, but the dream doesn’t stick around to show that._

_Helga only has a brief moment to be relieved by that, before she’s whisked from the memory and dropped into a nightmare._

_It’s La Sambra again. Unlike the last time, however, he hasn’t wasted any time gathering her friends one at a time. This time, the man has all three children wrapped in a choke hold in one arm, and holding the poison dart in the other._

Not again _, Helga wants to cry._ Please not again _!_

_Phoebe is crying and it_ kills _Helga to see that. She has only seen Phoebe cry a few times in the eight years she has known her—but this, gulping but silent sobs, is more horrible than any of those times combined. This is crying with terror._

_She wants to pull the girl away from the man—wants to hug her and apologize for every time_ Helga _has ever hurt her, ever been the one to make her cry. But Helga is rooted to the spot and her limbs are locked together._

_Gerald isn’t crying, but he is shaking violently. He’s shaking—like he had on the bridge, when they had almost fallen to their deaths. His face is trying for stoic, but it’s not even close. It hurts her heart to look at him._

_And Arnold. Her beautiful, perfect Arnold. He is a mix of the two—head held high, even as tears stream from his eyes—those green pools are so full of guilt and anguish that Helga would tear her heart out if it meant taking that pain away from him. She would give up herself in an instance, if it meant he could go free—if all three of them could go free._

_But she can’t move to do so._

_Helga watches with silent horror as the man stabs each of them with the poison, one by one. As they slump to the ground, each turning that sickly shade of green, La Sambra turns rather gleeful eyes on her._

_She opens her mouth to scream and—_

_~~~_

_—_ Helga feels a warm weight abruptly against her side. Still caught in the adrenaline, she pushes away from it and finds herself falling out of Arnold’s bed and slamming to the floor. Ow.

“Helga!”

Helga blinks her eyes open and finds herself staring into green that is not sickly, eyes that are not glazed over in half-death, or anguished pain—just sleepy, jellybean-green eyes that are only half awake. Helga tears up, partly in utter relief, partly still caught up in the torment of her dream.

The sight of them brings Arnold out of his sleepy state and there is an instant look of concern on his face. It wars with his confusion. “Helga? What’s wrong?”

Even as her breath hitches, she thinks about lying, thinks about making up an excuse. But she can hardly speak past the lump in her throat and so the only thing she can choke out is, “N-nightmare…”

In an instant, Arnold has sit up and pulled her into a tight hug. She clutches to his shirt. What starts as a few tears hidden into his shoulder are quick to become weeping.

Helga cries, really truly cries, in front of someone for the first time since she was very little. Sure, she has cried in front of some people a few times in the past couple years—but those were usually tears of remorse and they never _hurt_ this badly—these tears feel like something is ripping into her soul.

“I saw you d-die, you and Ph-Phoebe and Gerald—and I couldn’t _do_ anything but watch. I can’t ever do anything but watch.”

Arnold runs a hand shaky from hesitance (and perhaps other, sadder things) through her hair. He doesn’t say anything for a long time, just holds her while she sobs herself out.

When he finally speaks, his voice is wobbly. “We’re all here, we’re safe, Helga, I promise. You trust me, right?”

“More than anything,” Helga says immediately. Her tears have stopped for the most part. Now, she is tired again and her face itches from the half-dried tears.

“Then trust that we are all safe.”

After a few long moments spent sitting in Arnold’s embrace— _safe_ , he’s safe and he’s _safety_ —Helga pulls gently away. She scrubs away the remains of her tears viciously; because now that she’s caught up with herself, she feels embarrassed and ashamed to have so utterly lost control of her actions.

But Arnold gently tugs her hand down from her face. He laces their fingers together. She looks away from the gentleness of his eyes, even if she doesn’t pull her hands away.

“What time is it?” she asks quietly. She hadn’t expected to sleep as deeply as she did, even if she’d had another nightmare. “Where’re Phoebe and Gerald?”

She both hopes that they’re gone—so that they didn’t hear her meltdown—and hopes they’re simply downstairs, because, just as last time, she wants to see for herself that they are safe.

“They went home about an hour ago,” Arnold says. “It’s nine PM.” He hunches his shoulders guiltily. “Sorry we didn’t wake you. You looked so peaceful, I couldn’t bear to. Now, I wish I had…Sorry Helga.”

Eight hours. _Eight hours._ She kind of, maybe, wants to yell. But the remorse in his eyes is just too much for Helga. “ _Cool it_ with the guilt, Arnoldo,” Helga says, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. “Or _I’ll_ start feeling guilty for telling you.”

Well, _guiltier_.

Arnold’s eyes go wide and apologetic. “Helga, I’m so—”

“— _it was a joke_! Seriously, cut it out with the sad eyes or I will do something drastic—like…” She gets an idea. “ _Like_ giving you an FTi kiss. That’ll at least freak you out enough that you’ll look surprised instead of sad.”

Arnold blushes, like Helga had expected and hoped he would. What she doesn’t expect are the words that come out of his mouth. “It…it wouldn’t freak me out…I was just a little—” He seems to search for the correct words. “—caught off guard last time, is all.” His blush gets brighter and his eyes flick away from hers shyly. “I—I didn’t _dislike_ it.”

_Helga_ is now the one ‘caught off guard.’ “I practically stuck my _tongue_ in your _mouth_ ,” she says incredulously, trying her best to say it quietly. She thinks that Arnold’s parents might not be so approving of her if they were to learn _that_ little fact.

Now, Arnold looks like an oblong tomato. “I…I _know_. And, um, although I don’t think I’d be able to handle k—kisses like _that_ very often (at least…until high school), I maybe would be o—okay…or even… _happy_ if it happened again…”

Helga is…

“ _Huh_?” she says intelligently.

However, Arnold is approaching dangerous levels of pinkness, so Helga decides to change the subject.

And with her head now clear from exhaustion, and no longer terrified from the dream, her conversation with Stella after the movie comes back to her.

Well, she’s slept on it—is she ready to tell Arnold?

With the thought of it still sending a squirming, panic-y feeling through her stomach, she decides to test the waters. “So,” she begins, voice carefully casual. “I’m…I’m gonna go see Dr. Bliss tomorrow…”

His blush now fading, Arnold tilts his head. “For the nightmares?” He smiles at her. “She seems like a very nice lady. I’m glad you feel safe enough to talk with her about them.”

She considers letting him think that that’s all this is.

Eventually, Helga sighs and looks away from him. “Well. Actually…While I _am_ gonna talk to her about that…It’s Tuesday tomorrow, so… _so_ , I’m going to one of my weekly appointments…just…just like I’ve been doing since fourth grade.”

There is a moment of quietness. Helga still isn’t looking at him. She can’t bear to.

Finally, he speaks, voice tender. “Thank you for telling me. I’m happy you had someone you could talk to. I’m glad you have someone who cares about you like me and the rest of our friends do.” His voice is gentle and loving.

Helga flicks her eyes towards him and away again. It makes her a little uncomfortable to think about sometimes—that someone would genuinely _care_ about her with no ulterior motive or necessary prompting. She shrugs a little. “I guess I decided to tell you…sooner rather than later. Better you know now that I’m…less than normal.” There’s more to that than she can bring herself to say. She can’t find it in herself to tell him exactly how  _much_ she needs therapy. She's going to hold off on that.   
“Helga…”

Her free hand fidgets, forming and unforming a fist nervously. “And…I suppose while I’m on the subject, I should tell you why I didn’t want to hold your hand in public this morning.”

As if in response, Arnold squeezes her hand. “I thought about it, while you were asleep,” he admits. “You don’t want to show a perceived weakness. I guess it kind of makes sense.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Helga scoffs. “I have literally been in love with you for most of my life, and now you _like me back_ and I still can’t even stomach the thought of showing you affection without wanting to crawl under a rock.”

“Helga, it’s okay to hold off on doing something that doesn’t make you comfortable,” he tells her. His voice has become a mix of that tone he takes when he’s doing his Advice Thing, and awash with something like love. “Still, I’m glad you felt comfortable with explaining it to me. I really care about you a lot.”

Helga slumps a little and finds herself leaning her head on his shoulder. “There’s more stuff I should probably tell you, but I _really, really_ don’t want to,” she admits. “At least, not right now…”

“Just tell me what and when you can. It doesn’t have to be tonight.” He pulls away one of his hands to wrap her into a warm, one-armed hug. “For now, we should probably get you home.”

Helga nods into his shoulder, but doesn’t move straight away. “Yeah, I need to get back before it gets any later…Olga probably threw a hissy-fit about me slipping out of the st—the house this morning before she could rope me into something. Which means that _Bob_ probably actually noticed I was gone and got pi—angry on Olga’s behalf.”

Or, more likely, Bob might be angry that Helga hadn’t stuck around to help with nonexistent beeper sales.

Arnold gives a sad sigh. “Your…your parents, aren’t very good parents, are they?"

Helga scoffs. “ _Doi._ Welcome to the last _eight_ years of my life, Football Head. Honestly, up until I started going to Bliss, you and Phoebs were pretty much the only high points in my life.”

The arm around her tightens. “I wish I had found out earlier. I wish I could have prevented some loneliness…”

He looks so earnest, so sincere…

Before she can stop herself, Helga lifts her head to peck him on the cheek. “That’s not your fault, but t—thank you, for caring. You’re…you’re sweet. _I love you_.” The last sentence is said in a hurried whisper, and she finally gets to her feet, gently pulling her hand from his as she does so.

Arnold stands as well, and he seems to recognize that she’s not in the mood to make a big deal out of her saying “I love you” again. “My Grandpa can drive you home.”

Helga shifts on her feet, awkwardly. “It’s fine, I have two feet, I can walk.”

He takes her hand again, and she lets him. “It’s late, Helga. Please, do this for me.”

She gives him a jerky nod and follows him downstairs.

Arnold’s parents have already gone to bed—and a very small part of Helga wants to find that funny, that they could sleep for ten years, but not be rested by it. However, the rest of her knows that, A) it was a horrific and in no way funny thing that happened, and B) they’re still recovering and likely will be for a while. Helga’s still not quite certain _how_ the Green Eyes (the Green Eyed _children_ ) managed to keep them as well as they did.

But, well, gift horses.

The living room is devoid of the boarders as well. It only has Arnold’s Grandpa, sitting in a rocking chair, looking like he is a few minutes from dozing off. He blinks a couple times at the sight of them before grinning. He looks like he might be gearing up to tease Arnold (and, therefore, Helga as well).

“Can Helga have a ride home, Grandpa?” Arnold asks, staving off anything the man might have said. Helga gives the hand she is still holding a grateful squeeze, which he returns.

“Well, I don’t see why not,” Grandpa says cheerfully. “We can stop by that new all-night deli on the way. I’ve been wanting to try their muffuletta.”

As if on cue, Helga’s stomach grumbles, and she remembers that, _doi_ , she hasn’t had anything to eat since lunch.

Which is how Helga finds herself in a deli, eating sandwiches with Arnold and his Grandpa at ten at night—and then somehow ends up with all the leftovers (“I’m an old man, my stomach is weak and frail, you better take the other half of this.” “But Grandpa, you always eat a— _Ohh_ , yeah. Helga, I’m still full from dinner, you should take the rest of mine as well.” “You two are _not_ as sly as you think you are.”). It is only as the man turns his car onto the road that will lead to her old house that she realizes, _oh yeah_ , _there’s_ the problem with them bringing her ‘home’: It’s not home anymore.

Still, she decides she will simply do what she did yesterday. It’s not too far of a walk. Sure, she’s still tired. And, okay, it kind of defeats the whole purpose of them driving her home in the first place, but…

She doesn’t want Arnold to know. She loves him but she _does not_ want him involved. He will make her his next big ‘project’ and she doesn’t want that—especially now that they are…whatever it is that they are.

She asks Phil to drop her off at the beginning of the block.

“Don’t wanna wake everyone up with the car,” she says, with a weak laugh. After a long moment spent scrutinizing her, the man agrees and lets her off at the curb. She gives the two of them a grin she hopes doesn’t look as fake it feels. “Thanks again for, all this,” she says, lifting the bag of leftovers, but meaning it for far more than that.

“Of course, Helga,” Arnold says earnestly. “I—we care about you.”

 She gives him a somewhat shy smile. “And, I guess, despite being _asleep_ for most of it, I had a pretty good time today. I’ll see you tomorrow, if you wanna, Arnold—after my appointment.”

“What time does your appointment end? I’ll meet you there, if that’s okay?”

“It usually goes ‘til five,” Helga says. “And…I guess that’d be fine.”

He gives her hand a brief squeeze through the window and then waves as Helga walks away.

She strides until she is out of sight of the car and then waits for five minutes to make sure they’re gone, before continuing to walk—past the place she used to call home. By the time she arrives at the emporium, she feels dead on her feet. She stashes the leftover containers in the vegetable cooler in the fridge, where Bob won’t find them. Then she drags herself to her room and lays down.

She’s asleep before she even hits the pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And, thus, Monday is finally freaking done. I promise Arnold will eventually learn about Helga's living situation. I -almost- had him find out in this chapter, but I couldn't fit it in. The chapter was getting a bit too long and rambling. 
> 
> The kinda weird bit near the beginning, where Arnold cleaned Helga's face, is a call back to "Arnold Visits Arnie". It was weird-ish in the show, but idk it's him showing affection for Hilda/Helga?
> 
> For those who skipped the nightmare, Helga's dream was first an old memory. In second grade she came home to find her mother passed out--but dangerously so. She had to call 911. It's at that point that the memory shifts into a nightmare, another La Sambra one. He kills Arnold, Phoebe, and Gerald, with the poison dart.
> 
> Next chapter...might take a while. It is being very stubborn about being written. But it'll have Bliss in it; that much, I'm sure of.


	6. Olga, Crepes, and Therapy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Helga has four very different conversations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long chapter as my holiday gift. I hope you all have had a good month, no matter the (if any) holiday you celebrate. Happy New Years!
> 
> Oh my gosh, you guys, I'm exhausted. This chapter took forever to write (I kept getting writers block, ugh) and once I got into the home-stretch I ended up staying up til seven in the morning to finish it. I'm so glad it's done. There might be some typos and such, bc, again, it's seven in the morning lol and I'm getting a migraine. (Aaaand, Helga's tendency to overshare when she's tired in this story might be based off of mine hahahah ^^; i'll shut up now)

“Little lady, you are in _so_ much trouble.”

Helga pauses in her act of pulling a leftover sandwich out of the fridge.

It’s morning. After having no memorable dreams (thankfully), Helga awoke both refreshed and somewhat groggy. It’s a nice change over the last couple nights and it puts Helga in a good mood.

A good mood, which evaporates the moment Bob Pataki opens his mouth.

Helga stands and turns, holding her acquired breakfast in one hand and slamming the fridge closed with the other. “What’s the big offense this time, _Bob_?” she asks, eyes wide in mock concerned.

“You were gone all day yesterday,” he rumbles. He’s glaring, but that’s not unusual. It’s rare for him to _not_ glare at any person who isn’t Olga-shaped. “You shouldda been here, manning the store. And don’t give me any school excuse, I know it’s summer.”

Helga rolls her eyes. “I was at a class meeting—the actual _responsible_ adults were making sure that we weren’t _completely messed up_ from last week.”

Bob scoffs. “You’re fine. You don’t have any broken bones. You should have skipped it.”

“ _Mentally,_ Bob. I know you don’t believe in the concept of _mental_ _health_ , but they wanted to make sure we weren’t _traumatized._ Considering how many times I almost _died_ , I felt going was _kinda_ warranted.” Helga laughs bitterly. “But, well, who gives a crap about _Helga?_ —not a single solitary person in this building, _that’s_ who. I bet you guys wouldda been _glad_ if I had fallen off a cliff, like I almost did. Or if La Sambra _had_ offed me. Just one less _unnecessary_ mouth to feed.” She has gotten progressively worked up—all her frustrations and bitter thoughts at her family’s lack of care are exploding out; especially after yesterday, when she’d seen just how a real parent should act. Stella barely knows Helga, but the girl has felt more caring off that woman in one day, than she’s gotten from _both_ her parents in the last ten years _combined_.

Helga realizes she’s fairly squishing her sandwich and relaxes her hand. Then she looks to see how Bob is reacting. He’s been oddly silent, considering it’s now been a full ten seconds since Helga stopped speaking.

Bob is staring. His face is oddly blank, but Helga can’t tell if he’s just shocked by Helga’s tirade, or That Mad—in case it’s the second, she decides to get out of the room. She is _not_ in the mood to listen to him blow his top.

The man has never hit her, but sometimes she wonders how long that will stay true.

Most of the time, she doesn’t like to think about it.

Helga stuffs the rest of her sandwich in her mouth and strides past her father, pace almost a speed walk. Outside of the little kitchen, Miriam and Olga are standing stock still. She schools herself into an expressionless face.

“What?” she says.

Olga tears up. Oh _god_ . _Here_ come the waterworks. And _that’_ ll probably snap Bob out of his blank state and he’ll tear into her again. Joy.

But to Helga’s ultimate surprise, Olga sniffles and holds back her tears. Then she puts on a distinctly plastic smile and calls into the kitchen. “Daddy, I’m going to take Helga out for breakfast! I’ll be back to help in the store in a bit.”

And the young woman steers Helga past the still staring Miriam and out of the building.

It isn’t until they’re outside that Helga recovers her shock enough to pull herself away from Olga. “ _What the heck_?” she snarls.

The older girl is sniffling again. And this time she _does_ burst into tears. “ _Oh Helga_ ,” she wails. She lunges and grabs Helga into a crushing hug before the girl can stop her. “I had no idea you felt that way! _I_ care about you! I would care if you got hurt!”

“Ol…ga. You’re… _choking_ …me,” Helga gasps out.

Helga is released. She stumbles from her still sobbing sister, gasping in air.

“I should have said something to you,” Olga nearly weeps. “I was so scared for you, when they went after you, Baby Sister. _I_ would care if you weren’t here!”

“Olga,” Helga says, casting her gaze around nervously. “You’re gonna cause a scene.”

Indeed, a few people have turned their heads at the woman’s caterwauling. Rolling her eyes, Helga tugs Olga towards the woman’s car, nearly shoving her into the driver’s seat. By the time Helga’s come around to get into the passenger’s seat, Olga has somewhat composed herself. She’s dabbing delicately at her running mascara with a tissue.

“What is it that you dragged me out here for, anyway? Besides to keep Bob from chewing me out some more?” She looks away from her older sister. “Which…thanks for that, I guess.”

Olga gives another wet sniff. “I just wanted to talk—get things settled between us. I know you and our parents have a quarrelsome relationship, Helga, but that doesn’t mean _we_ have to.”

Helga blinked at the reasonableness of Olga’s words—always a rarity, and, as result, always a surprise. After a moment of silent stammering, the preteen says, “Fine. But, I wanna be able to actually get a word in, without you interrupting too much.”

Olga nods immediately.

“And you better make good on that breakfast,” Helga adds. “But, let’s get it to-go; I don’t want to have this conversation in public.”

And so, she and Olga drive downtown, past all the junky diners that Helga has a fondness for, and straight to a place that looks like somewhere hipsters would flock to—like some New Age-y tea shop. Helga wants to hate it immediately.

It’s pretty empty, but it’s still pretty early in the morning, so it might just be the calm before the ‘brunch’ rush.

Olga gives Helga a careful smile as the two walk in. “I found this little gem when I moved back here, last year. You like France, right? This place serves authentic crepes.”

“How did you know that about me?” Helga asks. She can’t help her suspicion. Helga hasn’t ever told _anyone_ (outside of Bliss) that she wants to go to Paris.

Olga’s smile gets bigger. “I noticed, when I was a student teacher, last year—as well as the year before—that you tended to draw the Eiffel Tower in the margins of your notes. Along with lots of footballs.” She gives a little giggle. “I don’t think there’s an American football league there though!”

“I want to go there to write,” Helga says, before she can bite the words back. _Crimeny_ , the slip up were supposed to stop with a full night’s sleep!

Hopefully, it was just a one-off this time.

“Oh, Baby Sister! How wonderful,” Olga says, with genuine delight. “What kind of writing?”

Helga does _not_ want to talk about this with her sister. “So—Crepes! Bit fancy for me, but sounds fine.”

Olga accepts the topic change without so much as a blink. “Yes, they’re wonderful. Technically, this is a tea shop, but crepes are the main food they serve.”

The conversation is, thankfully for Helga, halted—as they are noticed. The young woman manning the front of the shop is thrilled to see Olga, and even happier to see her younger sister. “Your usual?” she asks Olga, expectantly sweet.

Olga nods, then appears to have a thought. “Oh! But make sure mine doesn’t touch Helga’s. She’s allergic to strawberries.”

Helga blinks. She wasn’t aware that Olga knew that. She doubts that her _parents_ remember, and they’re around more—technically, anyway.

“Helga, sweetie, you order whatever you want,” Olga says, beaming down at her.

Helga is _not_ going to order whatever she wants, for two reasons: one, their family _really_ doesn’t have the money to be spending it willy-nilly; two, she knows that Olga is trying to butter her up.

Helga G. Pataki does not get buttered up. Especially not by _Olga_.

She orders the cheapest, non-strawberry crepe (It has nutella. Helga doesn’t even actually _like_ nutella). She can see that Olga has guessed her thought process, at least somewhat, because the woman’s smile has dimmed some.

They stand in tense silence while the woman behind the counter sets about making their crepes. The lady’s movements are fluid, as she smoothes the batter over the circle. It’s actually pretty cool to watch (though Helga would bite her tongue off before saying so to Olga).

They are handed their crepes carefully. Like Olga had requested, the lady is careful to keep the two crepes separate. Which means that Helga gets hers first. It’s handed to her, folded and hot to the touch, even through the paper. It smells pretty good.

Even with the nutella, it tastes really good too. Without looking at Olga, Helga tells the clerk so. The woman gives her a smile.

They leave after Olga pays. Helga sits on the hood of the car as she eats, and she’s glad Olga doesn’t reprimand her for it. She waves a careless hand at the woman to join her, and Olga sits down after a moment’s hesitation.

“Thanks for the food,” Helga says, after a moment of sitting in silence.

“Of course, Baby Sister,” Olga says with a beaming smile.

“So, we doing this, or what?” Helga asks, after a moment more of silent eating.

Olga sighs. “That would probably be best. If we take too long, Daddy will get mad.” She nods. “You wanted to be able to say what you wanted, without me interrupting, so…it’s probably best if you go first.”

The two have just about finished their crepes now. The younger girl swallows her last bite and thinks for a long while.

“You’ve done a lot of things that I’ve disliked,” Helga begins carefully. “When I convinced you to move to Alaska a couple years ago—when I told you that you make me miserable, I _wasn’t_ actually lying…”

Olga immediately looks in danger of crying again.

“But, despite a lot of what I say to you, it’s not really your attempts to ‘bond’ that make me want to hate you. It’s our lovely _parents_ and how you guys are around each other that, frankly, _piss me off._ ”

The young woman’s eyes widened at the language. “Baby Sister—”

“No, you said it was my turn to talk. Olga, they, almost literally, do not care about my wellbeing. I’ve spent the last couple years taking care of myself in a way most people don’t have to until they _move out_ . I do most of the housework—or, I _did_ until we _lost_ the house. I have to make my own lunches most of the time, if I don’t want saltines and Bob’s _shaving cream_ in my lunchbox. _Bob_ has given up on remembering my name altogether. And I’m pretty sure both of them still think I’m about eight.”

“Oh Helga, I’m sure they don’t think you’re eig—”

“Ask them how old I am. You’ll see. They’ve both called me eight within the last year. And, anyway, I think you missed the part where I _have to make myself food_ if I don’t want to _starve_.”

“That…Well, Mummy is a bit…out of it, sometimes, I’ll admit,” Olga concedes, avoiding Helga’s eyes.

“You can call her an alcoholic, Olga, I’m not dumb,” Helga says heavily.

Olga slumps. “I know you’re not. You are much smarter than any of us give you credit for, Baby Sister.”

Helga did not expect her to actually admit that. She isn’t going to deny it, since it’s true; but it still makes her uncomfortable to be praised by a member of her family in a way that doesn’t feel false, or make her feel like a five year old.

And that is _usually_ the problem she has with Olga. When she isn’t hogging their parents’ attention (sparse as it is when given to Helga), she’s infantilizing Helga—making her feel lesser, or horrifically embarrassing her. Part of Helga knows that there’s probably a reason Olga treats her the way she does—though, whether the reason is a good one or not remains to be seen.

Helga will admit, when she had been much younger than she is now, she had loved when Olga would baby her. Her parents had largely acted like Helga didn’t exist or matter; so when her elder sister would appear with cuddling and nice words and good food, Helga would soak it up. She would accept the hugs and caring without complaining. Heck, she had reveled in it, being so otherwise attention starved.

(She will _not_ admit to the few times during that part of her life, that she had pretended that _Olga_ was her mother—or wished it, at least.)

But her mind is drifting, getting off topic, and she focuses again.

“It just boggles my mind sometimes,” Helga says, “how you can act like everything's _a-okay_ when it’s _never_ okay.”

Olga's sigh sounds like it’s dragged from somewhere far away. “I…well, I suppose, you have your ways of coping, and I have mine. I learned when I was younger—about the age you are now, actually—that if I faked like everything was fine, sometimes I could fool myself into believing it. I guess, I’ve just gotten too good at it.” She looks profoundly sad, now. Not her usual, weepy kind of sad, but the kind of sadness that makes a person look ancient.

Helga is a little uncomfortable to be spoken so frankly to by her spacey sister. “Yeah, well…it may have worked for you, but it made things worse for me,” she mutters. “You guys are the adults here, _not_ me, but you don’t really act like it, when you check out of reality all the time.”

“I’m sorry, Baby Sister,” Olga says, slumping and looking at the ground.

“Can…can you stop calling me that, maybe?” Helga asks. “It makes me feel like a toddler, and that makes the whole deal with you spacing out even worse.”

Olga looks a little hurt for one moment, before her face clears. “Okay, Helga, I’ll do my best. I might slip up though. I’ve been calling you Baby Sister since you were born— _before_ you were born, really.”

Helga waves her off. “That’s okay. You can have a pass every once in a while.” She snorts. “As long as you don’t start callin’ me Lil’ Sis instead.”

Olga nods and giggles weakly. “That seems fair. And I promise I’ll do my best to not…‘check out on you.’ If I seem to be, you can tell me and I’ll do my best to, um…”

“Come back to reality,” Helga finishes drily.

Olga nods, giving her a tentative smile that Helga finds herself returning.

Suddenly, and strangely enough, it doesn’t feel like such a chore to be sitting beside her older sister. It’s like some gap has been bridged between them, and Olga has become a real, genuine, understandable human being.

It’s a little freaky how not-freaky the situation is.

Olga checks her watch. “Oh _sugar_ ,” she swears. “It’s been a whole hour. We need to get back to the store. I don’t want to upset Daddy.”

Helga sighs. “Can you drop me off at the grocery store? I need to pick up some stuff.” She is about out of soap. And she isn’t really in the mood to go back and face her father. “And I’m gonna be out ‘til at least six; can I count on you to keep Bob’s mind occupied?”

Olga nods, sliding off the hood of the car and offering Helga a hand to help her down. Helga takes it. “I’ll give you some money. We’re about out of bread. Where will you be going after the grocery?” At Helga deadpan look Olga smiles, rather wryly. “I’m not trying to smother you, Helga, but I would like to know.”

Helga huffs. “Therapy. I’m in therapy. Honestly, I thought you already knew that. Bob likes to complain about it to _me_ often enough.”

Olga beams. “Oh! Is it with Dr. Bliss? I’ve met her, she’s a lovely woman!”

Helga nods. “Yeah.”

Her older sister is still smiling as the two get into her car. “Therapy is a wonderful thing. Please don’t tell Daddy, but, you’re not the only one who goes. I started when I moved to Alaska. It was extremely helpful!”

Helga stares. _Olga_? Her perfect sister is in therapy too?

Honestly, she’s a little touched at the honesty. She decides to reward it with a little more honesty on her own part.

She looks out the window, as Olga begins to drive. “After…after I’m done with Bliss, I _might_ be going on a bit of a d-date…with, with Arnold, from my class. So, um, don’t freak if I come home a bit _later_ than six.”

The sound that come from Olga shouldn’t be made by humans. The car might swerve just the tiniest bit in the older girl’s excitement. “ _Oh Baby Sis_ —I mean, oh Helga! How wonderful! He seems like such a sweet boy.” She gives Helga a conspiratorial smile. “You know, when I was student teaching in your class this year, I thought I noticed him getting a bit of a crush on you. He stared quite a bit.”

“Really?” Helga blurts.

Sure, Arnold _had_ told Helga that he had indeed gained a crush on her some months ago; but for _Olga_ to notice and Helga to not…is she as dense as the boy she loves? Surely not.

Olga nods cheerfully. “Oh yes. It was adorable. I’m glad you decided to like him back!”

Well, at least Olga obviously didn’t seem to have noticed _Helga’s_ long-held obsession. And Helga isn’t going to tell her either.

Not everything has to change.

* * *

“How are you doing, Helga?”

Helga flops down on the lounge chair with a huff of air, dropping the sack of groceries on the floor next to her. “It’s a mixed bag. _Definitely_ a mixed bag. Most of it’s good, but there’s just enough bad that it’s kinda ruining the good a little; like if a person made a big batch of chocolate chip cookies, but decided to make a couple with raisins instead—wait, no, no, not raisins, dried _strawberries_.”

“Hmm, well, shall we start with the bad, or the good?” Bliss asks kindly, jotting something down in her notes. Helga’s quip about strawberries actually gets an eyebrow raise, which means Bliss is _really_ surprised.

Helga shrugs. “Might as well get the bad out of the way. You wanna hear about all the times I almost died last week, the nightmares I’ve been having _this_ week, the panic attack I had _yesterday_ , or how, this morning, I told my dad I thought he would’ve been happy if I _had_ died?” She puts her hands behind her head in a facsimile of casualness.

Bliss is silent for a long moment. “I suppose, if you’re asking me to choose, I would like to hear about last week first.” Her voice is calm, gentle. But, it’s an almost forced calm, like she is trying not to freak out. It’s the most frazzled Helga has ever seen her.

Helga understands.

She knows that Bliss is among those who actually, _truly_ , worries about her wellbeing. In her more optimistic moments (far and few between though those were), Helga would almost say that Bliss saw her as something close to a niece—she’s never been quite optimistic enough to think the woman might see her as rather like a daughter. The point is, Helga—more often than not—comes out of her therapy sessions feeling cared about.

And, so, it’s a nice contrast from her father this morning.

Helga nods and decides to stand. She has a feeling this talk will require pacing. “So, last time I was here, I told you about us winning that contest thing, so Arnold could find his parents—a-and the rest of us, could go to San Lorenzo.”

Bliss hums in agreement.

“So, we got there, and Arnold got suckered into believing the guy who picked us up was his parents old friend—so, he automatically _trusted_ the schmoe. The guy tells him not to tell any of us and, of course, the guilt eats at the poor little Football Head. And then…well, I think he might have been about to t-tell me…” Helga runs a hand over her face. She wishes she had let him. It could have saved them both some pain. Had she listened, she would have been able to tell Arnold that La Sambra was manipulating him. She’s good at noticing when an adult is up to no good—but only when she has enough facts. “But…I…well, I was getting tired of _waiting_ , Bliss. You and Phoebe and even _Gerald_ have all told me that I should wait for him to reply to my confession in his own time. But, gimme a break, it had been over a year since I told him my, my feelings, and he hadn’t given me any sign that he even remembered them…So, I…”

“So, you…?” Bliss prompts gently.

Helga stops her pacing, looking pointedly towards Bliss’s bookshelf, staring at it as if it’s the most interesting thing she’s seen today. “So…I told him again! And he freaked, _again_ —and I think at that point the ship got attacked, but…” Helga feels herself blushing in embarrassment. “…but I was too preoccupied being stupidly heartbroken.”

“Feeling hurt isn’t stupid,” the Doctor chides kindly. “You are a very intelligent girl, with a lot of heart.”

Helga laughs a little, reminded of her conversation with Stella the day before. “If enough people keep telling me that, maybe one day I’ll actually start to believe it.” She shakes herself. “But anyway, I…took the picture out of my Arnold locket, ripped it up, and tossed it into the river.”

Bliss’s eyebrows go up again. “I imagine that you wished you hadn’t, later,” she says, delicately.

Helga nods. “But Brainy saved it for me…”

She goes on to talk about La Sambra turning the class—herself and Gerald included—against Arnold. The guilt at this action gnaws at her gut.

“But you know now,” Bliss says. “That it wasn’t his fault, correct?”

“Yeah,” Helga sighs. “And I’ve told him to stop feeling guilty about it…But I think he still does.”

She continues to go through a run-down of their escape—all the while, she paces the length of the room. She can see Bliss out of the corner of her eye. Saying, “I knocked out the guard with a stapler” gets Helga a couple blinks from the good Doctor. Helga’s quick to go over their trek to the Green Eyes, though she keeps it vague—the city’s location isn’t her secret to tell, even if Bliss _is_ one of the most trustworthy people she knows. The woman is okay with this. She remains calm, as she is wont to be.

It’s only when Helga gets to the rope bridge, that Bliss reacts outside of her norm. Helga maybe glosses over just how _scary_ hanging over the side of a cliff was, but the woman still becomes the color of warm milk. She firmly places her perpetual cup of tea on its saucer, because her hands are shaking a little.

“Oh, dear! Were you injured?”

And, once again, Bliss’s concern is a stark contrast to her father’s disinterest. Helga feels her insides warm.

Helga shakes her head. “A few scrapes and bruises, but nothing else—it’s funny, despite almost dying a couple times, we ended up walking out of the whole situation relatively unscathed.”

“Well, that, at least, is a relief.” Bliss takes a deep breath and seems to find her equilibrium again. “What happened after you were rescued?”

Helga gave a hollow laugh. “What happened next seems to be a big reason for the nightmares I’ve had the last couple nights.” She stops pacing. “La Sambra. We all saw him fall off the cliff. I thought—I though he was d-dead. But, I guess he got a handhold somehow and pulled himself back up.”

Closing her eyes and breathing in through her nose, Helga describes the man, poisonous and sickly green, coming after all of them; her terror at the man picking Arnold up, too close, _too close_ , to the edge of the cliff.

“I…I…when La Sambra went over the cliff, I was so _relieved_ ,” Helga says. To her horror, a brief sob bursts out of her after the statement, but she quells herself immediately. “All I cared was that Arnold was safe— _we_ were _all_ safe. I didn’t even care that the Corazon went over the cliff too.” Her hands twist over each other in anxiousness, and she looks at Bliss, a little desperate for assurance. “Is—is that bad, that I didn’t care?”

“No, it does not make you bad,” Bliss says soothingly.

Helga feels something in her chest unknot in relief. She nods. “After…we went back to the Green Eyes to figure out the situation with Arnold’s parents.”

Bliss smiles. “I am going to assume that you were successful in the search for Arnold’s parents, given that they were present at the conference.”

Helga nods again. “Yeah, but they were under the sleeping sickness; the same one they went there to cure, or something. And, since…since the thing that would’ve cured them, the Corazon, went over the cliff with La Sambra…we thought, they wouldn’t ever wake up. But…I had an idea.”

Again, Helga holds out her locket, shyly. “It’s the same shape, and its gold plated. And. It fit.” She shrugs, maybe a little uncomfortable with the impressed look Bliss is giving her. Honestly, anyone would have done the same in her position. Right?

Helga hurries to move on. “A-anyway, that’s pretty much what happened.” She blushes. “Well, _almost_ everything…”

Bliss chuckles. “I noticed yesterday that you and Arnold seemed closer.”

Helga’s blush deepens. “Yeah…He. Bliss, he _kissed_ me.” She allows the elation she feels every time she thinks on the moment well up inside her and burst out. She gives a giggling sigh. “He told me he _likes me_ —that he’s liked me for _months_!”

Bliss is beaming. “Helga, I’m so happy for you!” she says genuinely.

Helga grins back. Just thinking of this boy that she _so_ loves, distances her from the heavy topic she just spoke of. She sits down on the chaise, looking at the woman. “He _likes_ that I love him. He—I think we’re an actual _couple_ . Bliss, I cannot _remember_ the last time so much good has happened to _me_.”

“You deserve some good,” Bliss says softly.

As Helga lays back in contentedness, her eyes land on the clock. Four-thirty. Her smile fades with a sigh. She has to get back on track. “I just wish the good didn’t have to come in a package deal with all the bad.” She puts her arm over her eyes. “I’ve had a couple nightmares since coming home, and yesterday I had a panic attack.”

“Would you like to tell me about these nightmares, or what might have triggered the attack?” Bliss probes.

“The panic attack is easy,” Helga says uncomfortably. “We were watching the new Evil Twin and the situation was just…too much like what happened in my nightmares. But, um, Arnold’s mom helped me through it.”

“I’m glad you had someone there,” Bliss says seriously. “What were your nightmares about, if you don’t mind giving me specifics?”

“La Sambra killing my friends,” Helga says, trying for a steady tone, but not quite getting there. “And last night, before I had that kind of dream, I kind of had a flashback to something that happened in second grade.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I had…I guess I repressed it? I came home to find Miriam passed out, but not the normal kind. She wouldn’t get up. There were some of her ‘smoothies’ nearby. I made an educated guess and called the hospital. I’d forgotten that happened until I dreamt it.”

“Oh dear, that had to have been scary.” Bliss’s serious eyes are trained on Helga.

Helga nods shortly. “I wish she had stopped drinking after that,” she whispers in admission. She scowls. “But she didn’t. She’s just as bad. And it’s stupid that I keep hoping.”

“It’s not stupid,” Bliss denies gently.

“I’m not naive, though. Or, at least, I’m not supposed to be,” Helga says lowly. “In my head, I know she’s not going to stop. She doesn’t want or care to.”

_She doesn’t care enough, to stop for me,_ Helga doesn’t say. Outloud, she says. “Can we talk about something else, now?”

“Of course,” Bliss says immediately. “Tell me about the good parts of your mixed bag.” She’s brought back Helga’s metaphor from the beginning of the session, coming full circle. She does this a lot, when the session is going to end soon. Helga knows that they’ve probably already passed the ending time, but she doesn’t dare look at the clock again. Neither of them want to end on a low note.

“Well, I think I might have sorted some stuff out with Olga this morning,” Helga says. “I kinda had a confrontation with Bob, like I said earlier, and she kinda pulled me out and we went for crepes. And we talked. It was…” She searches for the right word. “Enlightening, to say the least. I think we finally…met each other halfway.”

“That’s wonderful,” Bliss says sincerely. “It would be good for you to be able to have a positive relationship with her.”

The preteen shrugs. “Yeah. I mean. I’ve never hated her anyway, and she’s…promised to stop treating me like a little kid, and start taking me a little more seriously.”

“Good. I’m glad,” Bliss says firmly. Then she sighs and looks at the clock. “Unfortunately, that is about all the time I can give you today. We’ve gone over time. I have another patient coming in, in about ten minutes.”

“Sorry,” Helga says, hurrying to sit up.

“No, no there’s no need to apologize, I would have stopped you earlier if I needed to. You’re fine.”

They both stand. Helga grabs Bliss into a hug, like she does at the end of most every session. The woman gently hugs her back.

“Thank you for listening,” Helga says sincerely.

“You’re always welcome,” says Bliss gently. “Now, don’t forget your groceries.”

Helga scoops the bag up and opens the door, turning to wave at the Doctor. “See you on Thursday.”

Bliss waves back.

As Helga walks out into the reception area, she sees a familiar blond Football Head.

“Arnold!” she blurts. Honestly, she’d been expecting ( _hoping_ , really) that he would wait outside for her. But, instead, he was standing at the reception desk, chatting with the lady. Leaving Helga no time in which to collect herself.

“Helga,” Arnold says, turning and looking pleased to see her.

She shifts. Perhaps inviting him to walk her back from therapy had been a bad idea. Today—while it ended on a positive note—has been one of those time where she’s walked out feeling a little raw and exposed. “Heya Football Head. Whatcha talkin’ to the receptionist for?”

Arnold’s eyes flick down. “I was…making an appointment, for myself.” His words have gone quiet. He doesn’t sound ashamed, thankfully, but he’s clearly shy about the admission.

Helga pushes back her discomfort to smile genuinely. “Great! You’ll love Dr. Bliss. She’s kind of like you—only, she’s a lady, with a degree in psychology.”

His eyes come up to meet hers again, smiling. “I’m sure I will, then, if you like her.”

Helga nods. She feels better now, but she’s still eager to leave the office. “C’mon, let’s go get ice cream or throw rocks in the river or something.”

Almost automatically, Arnold reaches over to lace their hands together. Helga’s stomach gives the happy squirm it does whenever they make contact. “Both sound great!” he says sweetly. “And afterwards, you can come to my house for dinner, if you’d like.”

“I would like that, a lot, actually.”

Not the least bit so because she is not yet ready to face Bob after this morning. Really. Honest.

They leave the building.

Helga knows she needs to drop Arnold hand—knows all her good reasons for wanting to keep them secret—but she really, really doesn’t want to. She _wants_ the comfort of his hand in hers, especially after all that’s happened today. She bites her lip.

Well, she’s never seen their classmates in this part of town, so…just this once, Helga is going to ignore the anxiety being out in the open brings.

Instead, she edges nearer to Arnold. He smiles at her; either oblivious to her turmoil, or understanding her decision. She’s not going to ask which, because it doesn’t matter.

“I love you,” she tells him, for the fifth time in her life. Everytime she says it to him, it is both terrifying (though she knows now that he will not reject her love), and it fills her with euphoria to be _allowed_ to tell him.

He gives her the smile that she adores so much. Then he gives her a curious look. “How do know you know if it’s love? When did you figure out that you loved me, that it wasn’t just a crush?” He’s blushing slightly. “You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to! I’m just…curious, is all,” he adds quickly, when Helga’s surprise must show on her face.

Helga shakes her head. “No, I—I’ll tell you. Let’s go get that ice cream; I think there’s a park around here where we can eat it and talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time!: Helga and Arnold talk about stuff. That's probably about it. Probably. Wink, wink. 
> 
> This chapter. Eh. I had a lot of problems writing it. The good news is, the end of the chapter gave me a good idea for a plot for the next chapter so there might actually be a legit direction this story goes in. Maybe. Hopefully. What that plot -is- will only start to show itself in the next chapter though, so stay tuned for that! It'll probably be out some time next week. I start school on the eighth, so updates might begin to slow down to once every two weeks. But, like I've said in the past, I'm a stress writer, so idk they might actually speed up, depending on how soulcrushing my new classes are, hhah.


	7. Events in an Empty Park

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helga and Arnold have a talk. There are a few truths revealed, and a lie is made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, you know how I said, last chapter took forever to write? Well, this one didn’t. And I don’t know if that’s better or worse for the quality.
> 
> You guys continue to be The Best. All the love to you<3
> 
> If Arnold, maybe, seems to take this a little too easily, that is for two reasons. The first is because it is Word if God. Craig has stated that when Arnold finds out the stuff Helga has done in the past, he will take it calmly and with grace. And the second is because Arnold is not the type to wear all his emotions out on his sleeve. There will likely be talks to come from this. 
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy the Plot that I’ve begun >u>

The park is completely deserted when Helga and Arnold wander into it. That’s just fine with Helga. She’s resolved to keep her hand entangled with Arnold’s, but the lack of eyes on them helps.

“Second grade,” she says, finally, around a mouthful of rocky-road ice cream. Her groceries are hooked around the elbow of the arm holding her cone. They have been walking in comfortable silence since they left the ice cream shop (it isn’t nearly as good as Slauson’s).

Arnold tilts his head. “Huh?” There is a bit of ice cream on the corner of his mouth. Helga kind of wants to kiss it off, but she resists.

Instead, she says, “That’s when I realized that I was in love with you—that it wasn’t just a crush.” She swings their joined hands a little. “There wasn’t any big thing going on that made me realize. You were just swinging on the playground and the sun kind of caught your hair a little and I decided it was the loveliest thing I would ever see. And I remember thinking, _‘oh crap, I’m in love with him_ .’” She watches him blush heavily, before she chuckles self-deprecatingly. “ _Then,_ I pushed you in the mud.”

Arnold, still blushing shyly, laughs a little. “I remember that. Wasn’t that the same week you poured glitter glue on my head?”

Helga cringes, squeezing his hand in apology. “Yeah. Sor—sorry about that. In my _very weak_ defense, that was also the week you got a crush on that fourth grade girl with the curls.”

Arnold seems to struggle to remember this girl (which, yeah, is a bit of an ego booster for Helga). He’d only had a crush on her for a few weeks, until she’d moved all the way to New York. He’d spent another week moping around before he was back to behaving like the personification of the sun. “I think I remember her. Maybe.”

Helga bites back a smug grin. “Anyway, after I had that first realization, I _kinda_ did what you said you did after my confession. Except, instead of trying to make sure that I _was_ in love with you, I was trying to talk myself out of it.”

They have made it to the opposite end of the still-empty park, and Helga tugs Arnold to sit under a tree. Their ice cream is almost gone now, but Helga is still kind of hungry. The crepes she’d had with Olga were so long ago. She thinks she can hold off until later, however, because she doesn’t want to give up being alone with Arnold just yet.

“At first, I would tell myself that I wasn’t really in love you,” Helga continues, voice quiet and a little hesitant. Arnold is listening intently. “I would try to believe that I simply had a hero-worship crush—which, granted was _definitely_ how my crush started.”

Arnold turns bright red. “H-hero worship?” he squeaks out.

Helga can feel herself blushing in return. “Yeah….kind of. I—I told you that I fell for you the moment I met you, yeah?”

Arnold nods.

“Well,” Helga says, then stops, trying to decide how to explain what had all happened that day. She doesn’t want to get too into detail about her family with him. So, haltingly, she tells him the bare bones of the situation: how she had been ignored by her family and had decided to walk to preschool by herself.

“But it was storming that day,” Arnold says worriedly. “Surely, they wouldn’t have let you walk there in the cold and dark.”

She gives him a flat look. “Football Head, dollface, have you _met_ my family?”

He looks chagrined. “Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” She waves him off with the hand holding the ice cream cone. His face is splattered slightly with rocky-road. “Crap, sorry!” She pulls away her hand from his to wipe it off. Her hand, perhaps, lingers a little. She can feel his face get hot, even as she watches the blush spread across his face for the umpteenth time. She drops her hand and he automatically reaches to lace their fingers again.

“It’s okay. A-anyway, you were talking about walking to school?”

Helga nods, settling against the tree (and she, maybe, presses her shoulder against his as she does so). “So, I get to school, lunch stolen, covered in mud, and, as I’m standing outside, the rain suddenly stops.”

There is a dawning of realization on Arnold’s face. Helga smiles gently at him.

“I turn, just as someone says, ‘hi, nice bow,’ and for one legitimate second I thought you were an actual angel holding an umbrella.” She shrugs, uncomfortable saying that aloud. “I mean, yeah, in the next second, I realized you were really a cute kid my age who shielded me from the rain, but that first second was all I needed to fall.”

“I thought you were really pretty,” Arnold says sincerely, though his face is scrunched up with the difficulty of remembering. “I thought you must have been playing in the mud, which I was a big fan of at that point, so I thought you were wonderful, along with your prettiness.”

Helga blushes, shoving her shoulder gently against his in false reprimand. “Cool it with the cheese,” she says, though her grin belies the demand. She eats the rest of her cone, and Arnold follows suit.

“So, um,” Arnold says with a smile, “You said why you got your c-crush in the first place and when you realized you were in love with me—” His grin gets goofy at the words. She wants to kiss it. “—but, um, _why_ do you?”

“How could I _not_ love you?” Helga asks immediately, before she can bite her tongue. Still, now that she’s said it, she might as well tell him what she can. It’s hard to pinpoint one or two actual reasons, but she’ll do her best. “Honestly, I’m surprised more people don’t get crushes on you.”

Arnold laughs self-consciously. “Helga.”

“I’m serious! You’re one of a very limited pool of good-looking guys in our grade, you don’t act like a little snot, you’ve got a laid back vibe about you, and you’re really smart.”

She really, _really_ likes it when Arnold blushes.

“Also, you’re really cute when you blush,” she says. “Though you look like you’re going to catch on fire, so we should probably change the subject.”

Arnold nods, a little vigorously. “Thank you, though, for answering my question. A-and for all the nice stuff you just said.”

Helga hums. “Honestly, I should probably tell you some of the stuff I told you I wanted to tell you yesterday. That might calm your head—might not though. Might make you run for the hills.”

Arnold laughs. “I won’t run, Helga.”

Helga shakes her head, hand tightening around his. “Sure, you say that now, but once you know _what_ I’m gonna say, you’ll probably change your mind.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Try me.”

She’s going to start with something relatively small, in that he knows of their existence through her confession. “You know all those creepy monuments the Green Eyes had of you?” Arnold nods. “I’ve been making shrines on par with those since I was eight. One in particular looked almost exactly like the ones we saw there. And I worship (or did?) them in probably similar ways to how they do.”

Arnold digests this information. Then, he says. “Well, I already knew you had a creative mind. Who am I to judge how someone goes about expressing that?”

He is evidently not phased by the fact that his sort-of-girlfriend legitimately worships the ground he walks on.

Helga scowls at how blase he’s being. “I can make up soliloquies and poems about you on the spot,” she says.

Arnold smiles. “I heard one of those back in San Lorezo. It was pretty and it made you look really happy.”

Helga tilts her chin up in challenge and speaks. “ _You ask, “Why do you love me?”_  
_How could I not, when you exist?_  
_Your eyes are my favorite things to see_  
_Though, your mind is definitely not to be dismissed._  
_You are bright, in both thought and smile, and that fills my heart_  
_I could never describe your goodness in a way that’s understandable_  
_Though it makes even me able to see the positive in life, for a start._  
_The dreams that pass behind your eyes are unfathomable_  
_I would covet those dreams, if I could, like a dragon covets riches._  
_There are so many reasons, why I love you, the choices have me torn asunder_  
_Though, even if it is a new development, I adore your kisses_  
_However, holding your hand or holding you close are just as much (or more) a wonder._  
_I hope these have helped, somewhat, to answer your question._ _  
_ I have to admit, though, “Because I can” is perhaps the best one.” She cocks her eyebrow in question for his reaction. “Made that one up just now, when we were talkin’.”

“Again, you’re very extremely creative,” he says brightly, then he beams suddenly. “All those poems Mr. Simmons reads in class, those are yours aren’t they?”

Helga huffs. “Most of the time, yeah. That’s not the point, though. Doesn’t it _bother_ you?”

“No, I think it’s great you have something you’re so wonderful at,” Arnold says sincerely. Helga blushes.

Seriously, she usually loves his ability to not be phased by things, but right now it’s only annoying her. “I regularly break into your house—”

“—I figured that out after your confession,” he says, almost smug about it. “I assumed it with the whole, ‘night and day’ thing.”

Helga steels herself. She had been planning on dropping her next truth at some point (though, she wishes it doesn’t have to be _now_ ). “What do you _think_ a person who stalks someone they’re legitimately obsessed with would do if they broke into that person’s house?” she asks, somewhat rhetorically. “Their room in specific?”

Arnold tilts his head and thinks for a very, very long moment. Helga can see the moment it clicks in his mind, because he is abruptly the color of a cherry. The hand holding Helga’s has gone damp with sweat. “Um. You. You, um.” He swallows, eyes flickering with effort to meet hers. “Did you watch me und—”

“Oh Nadine, I told you the cafes in this area were so much better than the ones by our school!”

Oh. Crap.

Rhonda and Nadine have appeared and are coming up a path that will pass directly in front of the tree Helga and Arnold are sat under. Helga silently begs the ground to open up and swallow her whole. She does _not_ want to be found out by the biggest gossip in their entire _school_.

She turns scared eyes on Arnold, who has lost his mortified flush for a worried look. One aimed at Helga. She lets out a breath, an idea forming in her head. Well, she _was_ telling him stuff she did, right?

“Gimme your jacket,” she hisses, and slides it on the second he removes it. She zips it up and shifts around, so the hem of her skirt is mostly hidden under her knees. Then she reaches up and pulls down her hair, finger-combing it so that it falls over one of her eyes.

Arnold lets out a strangled gasp.

“Follow my lead, you can freak out later,” she says under her breath, settling back against him, just as Rhonda and Nadine pass close enough that the couple is spotted.

Nadine makes eye-contact with Helga, and Helga is abruptly glad that she interrupted one of her monologues last year. Nadine won’t spoil the secret.

“Arnold, doll,” Rhonda says, eyebrows shooting up in shock. “Who’s this? Is she your girlfriend?”

“I—I, yes,” Arnold manages to get out. “This is my g-girlfriend, _Cecile_.” At this, he shoots an imperceptible look that Helga barely catches aimed at her. She smiles and laughs, though it sounds false to her own ears.

“Oh, yes, Arnold is my darling, loving boyfriend, whom I love.” She inwardly cringes. The words, true though they may be, sound fake.

Rhonda, though, doesn’t seem to notice. All she seems to care about is the scent of fresh gossip, and Helga can see what conclusions MissRhondaLloyd has drawn (she’s clearly reluctantly impressed, an eyebrow raised in shocked surprise). She kind of wants to laugh, even as guilt pools in her stomach.

Hopefully, Arnold’s reputation won’t be too damaged by the idea that he would bring his girlfriend to secluded areas and (what with Helga looking a little ruffled) probably kisses her.

Yeah…Helga is feeling some serious guilt. She’ll have to help him come up with ideas to stunt the rumor, once they’re no longer in danger of social-death.

“I see,” Rhonda says, slowly. “Well, it’s nice to meet you Cecile. Do you go to PS 118?”

_Do I know you_ , she is asking silently. Helga has to be careful.

“No, I go to a private school, upstate,” Helga lies. “My family lives here and so I’ve come to visit them for the summer. And to visit Arnold, of course.” She gives a fake pout to the poor blond boy, who is simply watching Helga spin her tale. “We don’t get to see each other very often, do we honey?”

_I should be in the movies,_ Helga thinks smugly.

“Y-yeah,” Arnold agrees. He doesn’t attempt to expand on the fib, which is probably for the best. He’s not the best liar.

(They will have to work on _that_ later, as well.)

And anyway, Rhonda clearly decides to believe the story, because she gives ‘Cecile’ a half-sincere attempt at a smile. “Well, how wonderful for the two of you. Me and Nadine must be off; shopping to do, you know.”

Nadine looks behind her shoulder once, as the two leave.

Helga is certain Rhonda will have spread the news around the entire city by tomorrow. Oh joy.

When they are gone, Arnold drops his wavery grin in favor of staring blankly at Helga. Oh, _great_ , he chooses _now_ to get freaked out, about _this_ , of all things. “You’re _Cecile_!?”

“Ta-da!” Helga does jazz hands, laughing nervously. She pushes the hair out of her face. “But, really, _this_ is what freaks you out? N-not what I, well, earlier, I—”

“Helga, please. I don’t think I could handle hearing it aloud.” Arnold has gone back to blushing again. Helga shuts her mouth. “I—I think it’s a combination of the two, really.” He eyes her, extremely shy. “If…If you promise not to w-watch, um, _that_ , again, I’ll forgive you for it.”

“ _Oh,_ I swear,” Helga says immediately, making an X over her heart with a finger. “I’ll swear on my Arn—on my locket. I won’t.”

Arnold visibly relaxes, then he goes back to staring at her. “So, you’re…you’re Cecile?”

Helga huffs. “ _Yes, Arnoldo_ , I’m the person who pretended to be your French penpal in third grade. Why is that such a surprise?”

“I dunno,” he says, contemplatively. “I guess the difference in your hair and clothes made it hard to tell it was you.”

Helga runs a self-conscious hand over her hair. “I suppose Cecile _was_ a bit of a knock-out…” She looks down at herself, grimacing at her grass-stained jumper and comfy tennis shoes.

“No, no, you look fine, just as you are,” Arnold hastens to say. “Lovely, even.”

Helga scoffs doubtfully. “Whatever you say, Arnold.”

Arnold smiles cheekily at her. “You got that right, _bucko_.”

She snorts at him and then taps her chin. “Still, though. If both you and _Rhonda_ couldn’t tell it was me, then maybe this disguise still has some uses…”

“What do you mean?” Arnold asks curiously. He takes her hand again. Her stomach squirms happily, automatically.

“Well, I know you would probably rather _not_ have to go around in secret—”

“—Helga, I’ve told you that I’m fine—”

Helga holds up a hand. “Wait until you see where I’m going with this. And, really, _I_ would rather not have to hang out in secluded areas all the time (even as fun as that is). But I’m also very much _not_ ready to be my full self around _everyone_. So, what if, when we wanted to go on more “public” outings—” She can’t bring herself to say the word ‘date’ to him. “—I would disguise myself as Cecile?”

Arnold is staring.

“Um, Arnold?”

Still staring.

Helga laughs nervously. “Football Head, you’re making me nerv—”

“—You, you would do that, for me?” Arnold asks, eyes wide and shining. He’s beginning to smile. “You would be okay with going out to somewhere like Slauson’s, being there when it has classmates inside, with _me_?”

Helga rubs the back of her neck. “Well, I mean, _yeah_. Like I said, I wanna be able to go wherever we want.” Her brow furrows. “And, you know, that I’m not ashamed of dating you, right? That’s not why I feel the need to hide this—you know that, right?”

He smiles, gentle and sweet. “Yeah, Helga. But thank you.” He stands, pulling her up with him. “Speaking of, we’d better start heading back.”

The sun is just beginning to set. Helga isn’t sure how long they’ve sat for, and she doesn’t much care. Time with Arnold is time well spent.

Even if that time had been spent carving away at the wall that hides her secrets.

Now, she’s ready for a nice, calm walk to the boarding house (as well as some wonderful food courtesy of the Shortmans).

Arnold, though, evidently has other plans regarding the calmness of their walk. They’re about halfway back to familiar streets, when he breaks the comfortable silence.  

“So, um, there was a reason I asked about how you knew you were in love with me earlier,” Arnold says nervously. “S-see, like I’ve said, I’ve had a crush on you for almost a year, which is longer than any of my other crushes…so I started to wonder if, maybe, I might actually lov—”

“ _No!_ ” Helga yelps, slapping a hand over his mouth. “Don’t say it!” Panic is immediately circling in her stomach, making her feel queasy.

Arnold’s eyes are hurt. “ _He...ga”_ he mumbles against her hand.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Helga groans, dropping her hand and slouching. “But I don’t think either of us are ready for you to say that.”

“But, what you said earlier sounded like how _I_ felt.” Arnold’s voice is dripping in frustration.

“But, I have also been in love with you for _two-thirds_ of my life,” she shot back. “You’ve liked me for a couple months and we’ve only been da-date— _together_ for less than a week. Please, Arnold, haven’t we had enough revelations for the day?” Her voice has gotten weaker and weaker as she has spoken. “Especially me. I got in a pretty bad fight with my dad this morning, and my sister tried to bond again; and this time I let her. Therapy _always_ takes a lot out of me, and I dropped like four truth-bombs on you, which are just as draining.” She realizes her hands are trembling slight and she does her best to make them stop. He squeezes the hand he’s still holding.

“I’ll wait, then,” he says, softly. “As long as I can.”

“Thank you for understanding, darling,” she mumbles. “I don’t deserve you. You’re too good for me.”

“Please don’t say that,” he says. “I don’t want anyone badmouthing my g-girlfriend, not even my girlfriend.” He blushes. “Is it okay to call you that?”

Helga sighs, feeling a smile at the corner of her mouth. “I _suppose_ it’s fine,” she jokes weakly. “If I can call you my boyfriend in return.”

“Deal.”

She loves this kind, understanding boy, but she decides not to say the words again, at least for right now. It would feel like she’s throwing it in his face, that she’s free to say them but he isn’t. But, she just…

It would be to much, to hear those words from him, and then to have him take them back sometime down the road.

It would destroy her.

“Can I ask you something?” Arnold asks quietly, after a moment more of them walking hand-in-hand. They’re going to have to drop them soon, as they’re beginning to reach familiar areas.

“Shoot,” Helga replies. She has calmed down some. She’s willing to _hear_ what he has to say (whether or not she _answers_ his question depends.)

“What was your fight with your dad about?”

“Whether the moon is made of cheese,” Helga snaps sarcastically, immediately. She sighs at the look he gives her: fond and frustrated and worried, all at once. “It was—I just—He was—” The words are stuck in her throat, because she doesn’t want him to get involved with her family drama.

The situation with her father has gotten worse, since his business started crashing and burning—and what she had said to him this morning, about having one less mouth to feed, had not likely been far off the mark. Bob has the tendency to blame her for most everything that goes wrong.

Eventually her throat unsticks enough to speak. “Look, I’m not gonna give specifics, but he was not very happy I went to the conference yesterday. He thinks that because there’re no physical signs of injury on me, that I shouldda skipped it. I told him—well, I told him some stuff that wouldda made any _decent_ parent worried. Then I walked out.” She glares. “Don’t ask me what I said, because I’m not gonna tell you.”

Helga is abruptly pulled into a hug. Immediately, she leans into it, clutching to the back of Arnold’s shirt. “Sorry for prying, but I care about you, Helga. And I worry. Thank you for answering me anyway.”

The hug long passes the amount of time Helga would have alloted for in the past, before she would have thrown him off, back before he knew of her feelings. She wants to _stay_ in this hug, potentially forever. Where she is safe, and the world around them is dampened, and her mind is quiet for the first time today. Where she is cared for. Where she might even be loved (if she weren’t so terrified of the idea, anyway).

“Dinner’ll be done soon,” Arnold says after a while, voice regretful. Helga pulls back reluctantly and it takes a lot of strength to not reach for his hand as she does so. “We’d better get back to the boarding house.”

\---

The boarding house smells really wonderful when the couple go inside (avoiding the avalanche of animals, naturally).

“Grandma said she was making roast,” Arnold says happily, when they step into the hall. It’s cooler inside, and the flush of cold air makes Helga close her eyes. She hadn’t realized how hot outside it is until now. The scent of roast beef wafts through the air, making Helga’s stomach rumble silently.

“Smell’s amazing,” Helga says, giving him a genuine smile.

“I think she likes pulling out all the stoppers for you,” Arnold tells her. “She doesn’t usually do a whole bunch of big meals like this in a row. Usually we’ll get a day where it’s take-out, or sometimes it’s just watermelon.” He says the word ‘watermelon’ like one might say ‘flu shot’ or ‘math test’. It’s adorable, but she can’t focus on that.

Helga’s eyes go wide. “She shouldn’t do that, not for me. I’m not a big deal…”

Arnold puts a hand on her shoulder and gives her an intense look. “Hey, I told you I don’t want you badmouthing my girlfriend.” Then he grins a little, eyes sparkling.

Helga rolls her eyes. “You’re gonna use that every time I put myself down, aren’t you, _boyfriend_?”

“I have to admit, yeah, I might,” he says. “I like being able to call you my girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?”

There is an unfamiliar (and excited sounding) female voice from behind them. They turn to face a woman with short, curly blond hair. She’s removing a backpack from her shoulders, as she closes the door behind her. Arnold smiles at her.

“Hi Suzie,” he says, looking genuinely happy to see her.

“Hello, Arnold,” she replies sweetly. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to great you guys when you got home from your trip. I’m glad you were able to find your parents.”

“That’s fine, you were visiting your sister,” Arnold says guilelessly.

Suzie’s smile gets slightly fixed. “Yes, um, visiting.” There is movement on the stairs and Suzy’s fake smile abruptly resembles plastic. “Oh. Oskar.”

Helga looks over her shoulder at the bearded man, who is grinning nervously. She’s surprised, because he doesn’t say anything (he’d been a right chatterbox at breakfast and lunch yesterday). He only gives the woman half a wave and then swiftly moves into the dining room. Suzie makes a confused noise. After a moment though, she attempts another smile at the preteens.

“So, girlfriend, huh?”

Arnold laughs shyly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, it’s a new thing.” His eyes go wide. “Oh! I dunno if you two have met; Helga, this is Suzie Kokoshka, a friend and a boarder here. Suzie, this…this is my g-girlfriend, Helga G. Pataki.”

Helga watches the woman go through several facial expressions as Arnold speaks: a grimace at her own last name, a touched expression at naming her friend first, and a positively ecstatic expression at the news of the new couple.

Suzie holds out a hand and Helga shakes it. “Nice to meet you,” the woman says.

“Yeah, it’s cool to meet you too.”

Suzie makes a gesture towards the bag still half on her shoulder. “Well, I’d better go put this down somewhere. I’m happy for you both.”

She leaves.

Helga turns towards Arnold, considering whether to ask him about the weirdness between Suzie and Oskar—but, she thinks she has a pretty good idea already, and she _doesn’t_ think Arnold has any clue. It’s not her secret to tell. And it clearly _is_ a secret from Arnold; probably to protect his sweet, naive view that _any_ family can be a happy one, if one just tries hard enough. (A view that might have gotten even more naive now that he has his parents back, safe and sound.) And, well, Helga’s always willing to protect his fragile worldview. It’s kind of her thing.

So, instead, she takes his hand. “Hey, let’s go hang in your room, until dinner’s ready, if that’s cool?”

Arnold smiles. “Sounds like a plan.”

And this time, Helga isn’t going to fall asleep.

Yesterday, she had only had a brief time to enjoy being in Arnold’s room. This time, however, she is going to relish in it—as well as being _alone_ with him in it (after she had woken up from her nightmare hardly counted, because there was no enjoyment involved there, at all).

However, as they are climbing the stairs, Arnold is stopped by his Grandpa. “Hold it right there, Shortman,” he says, in a sort of stick-em-up kind of voice. “You have chores to be doing before dinner.”

Helga hears Arnold stifle a groan and she has to hide a grin. “But I have a guest,” he complains, half-heartedly.

Grandpa waves a mock-stern finger at his grandson. “That doesn’t mean you don’t have duties. You can play with your little _girlfriend_ afterwards.”

Arnold sighs and gives Helga an apologetic look. “Helga, I’m—”

Helga waves him off. “It’s cool, Arnoldo. I’m still gonna be here when you’re done.” She shrugs. “Heck, I can help, if you’d like.”

Grandpa grins. “Wonderful, Pookie is in the kitchen if you’d like to help her out again, or I think the animals need feeding, or, actually—” The man grins deviously. “—I think Arnold has laundry that needs putting away.”

Helga’s face goes hot, probably mirroring the red of Arnold’s face. _“Grandpa_ , she’s a guest, she doesn’t have to—”

Helga holds up a hand. “No, no, I _did_ have fun cooking with your mom and grandma yesterday, much though it pains me to admit liking any sort of chore.”

Arnold looks grateful, probably because Helga didn’t straight-out offer to help with his laundry.

(She’s a little disgusted with herself, that even a small part of her is tempted. But, well, she’s still _herself_ . And after years spent stalking the boy, it’s a little hard to _not_ jump at an opportunity like that.)

“Speaking of,” Helga says. “Is Arnold’s mom not helping today?”

Arnold’s Grandpa shakes his head, looking, for the first time since Helga had known him, uncomfortable. “They had, uh, _paperwork_ to fill out at City Hall.”

It takes Helga a very long moment to understand. When she does though, her stomach drops like a stone. She had read once (back in second grade, when she had decided that she wanted to work in law—a resolution that had lasted all of a month), that a missing person is usually declared legally dead after seven years.

Clearly, Phil doesn’t wish to come right out and say this in front of Arnold. Though, judging by the brief flicker of past-grief that goes over Arnold’s face, Helga thinks that he knows what is implied. She squeezes his hand.

“They’ll be back in time for dinner, though,” Grandpa says, bringing his brightness back onto himself, almost like a mask. “So if you wanna help, Helga, we’d best hop to it!”

Helga gives a mock salute. “Sir, yes sir.” She gives Arnold’s hand one last squeeze before she lets go; and then, for extra measure, she gives him a peck on the cheek (eying the boy’s grandfather as she does so).

It’s the first time since San Lorenzo that’s she’s ‘publicly’ shown the boy such blatant affection, and she doesn’t want his Grandpa to make a fuss about it. Thankfully, all the man does is smirk in amusement as he follows Arnold up the stairs, while Helga heads back down them. She puts her grocery bags in the hall, then she follows the scent of cooking food to the kitchen (doi).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time!: Dinner. And Helga and Grandma Gertie bond. 
> 
> The updates will probably slow down now, because I start my Psych. class on Monday. And oh sweet peaches, the text book is DRY someone save me from the unfunness that is this text book.


	8. Dinnertime, Story-time, and Time for One More Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helga bonds with Gertie as they make dinner and the day (aka the writer) decides to have Helga suffer through one more revelation before the night ends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna wait to post this chapter until next week (since I only have about two lines written for next chapter), but honestly...THIS chapter is done and I wanted to feel like I've accomplished something, since I'm making very little headway into homework, or housework, or life in general.
> 
> If any of you have any plots you'd like to see (ex. due to the identity thing, there is a misunderstanding), feel free to tell me. I'll see if I can do it.

Gertrude Shortman is dancing around her kitchen, holding a meat cleaver, and singing.

(Helga’s not sure where the song is from, only that she thought they had planned on roast, not meat pies.)

“Um, Mrs. Shortman,” Helga tries. Arnold’s Grandma spins to a stop and immediately grins upon seeing Helga.

“Why, Eleanor, how lovely to see you again!” She frowns in mock-sternness. “Though, I’m sure I’ve asked you to call me Gertie.” Her frown becomes real. “Or, I meant to.” She taps her chin with the meat cleaver.

“Sorry, Gertie,” Helga says immediate, hopefully so the woman will put the sharp object down. “I’ve come to, um, help with the meal.”

Gertie’s somewhat-lost look becomes a beaming smile. “You’re too kind, Eleanor.” She gestures to a pot on the stove that has steam billowing from it. “The potatoes are just about ready to be mashed, if you’d like to do that. There’s spices in the cabinet and butter and milk in the fridge.” The woman pulls the pot off the stove and drains the water, dumping the potatoes back into the hot pot. Then, she hands Helga a masher and a pot-holder. “Be careful not to burn yourself.”

Helga sets about on her task. It’s reminiscent of yesterday morning, though Helga does miss Stella’s presence. Still, Gertie makes up for the lack of a third person, by talking enough for two.

“—And feel free to add whatever you’d like.” The woman pulls the roast from the oven, bringing with it a fresh wave of wonderful smells. “You might like to take some of the garlic from the roast.” Indeed, there are large pieces of garlic speckled around the roast, along with carrots and celery. Helga takes some to smash in with the rest of the mix.

“This is a good stress reliever,” she says after a while, grinning at Arnold’s Grandma. The woman cackles in return. It’s not a lie. Much of her left-over anxiousness from the day is squashed out through the motion.

After Helga has added all she can think of the potatoes (garlic, butter, milk, and about fifteen different spices), Gertie transfers them into a slow cooker.

“Why?” Helga asks, watching the woman go through the motions with a graceful fluidity that belies her age.

“Well, nobody likes cold potatoes, and we’ve still work to do! This’ll keep  them warm until we’re ready to eat.”  She moves back to the stove, motioning for Helga to join her as she does so. “Now, let me show you how to make gravy.”

Helga likes making gravy.

As the two of them set the table, a little while later, Helga brings up something from yesterday’s breakfast. “Did you really used to tease Arnold’s Grandpa too?”

Gertie chuckles. “Oh yes, I was horrible to him. Thumbtacks in his seat, tripping him into the mud on the playground, and I called him Chin Boy.”

Helga puts a plate down and fidgets slightly. “Can I ask why?”

She thinks she might see the woman pause for one fraction of a second, but she blinks and the woman is back to placing utensils by each place. She might have imagined it. “Oh, well, I was terrified he’d reject me, of course. I thought he’d think I was gross, and, as I got older, it just became a secret I kept, like second nature.” She’s gone misty-eyed, remembering. “It got easier to keep that secret, once he dropped out of school, but I was terribly lonely for it.” She gives Helga a smile. “It was really quite brave of you to confess to Arnold; why, I didn’t pluck up my courage until right before he went off to war. And even then, I refused to get together until he came home in one piece. For more than one reason, of course.” She chuckles at some secret joke with herself, mumbling something that sounds like, ‘Hedy Lamarr.’

Helga thinks about what it would be like, to have held onto her silence for years and years, only telling Arnold when he was about to put his life at risk. The thought makes her sick to her stomach. “I wouldn’t have been able to stand it,” she says.

“It was horrible,” Gertie agrees. “Add into the fact that we were only sixteen at the time (for Phil was a clever one and had faked his age on his enlistment papers), I had to sit through school, while was off somewhere, being shot at and—” She shakes her head, cutting herself off. “I finally got fed up with it all, dropped out of high school, and went to join the war effort. Though, I can’t deny that there was a more selfish reason for my leaving.” There’s almost a _bitterness_ to the way the woman says those words, and it’s a familiar sort of bitter that Helga knows all too well. Something like sadness curls in Helga’s stomach at the thought of them sharing this. From the way the woman abruptly stops talking, it’s clear that she hadn’t meant to let it slip out. Helga, knowing the feeling all too well, immediately gives her an out.

“You wanted to go look for Phil, right?”

There’s a knowing gratefulness to the elderly woman’s sudden grin. “That’s right! He’d left me behind after all. I knew I was going to have to rescue him eventually.” She shares a small laugh with Helga over this.

“Now, Pookie, don’t go telling tall tales,” Grandpa’s grinning voice intrudes.

The woman puts down the last of the food and turns to look at her husband, hands on her hips. “I’m sure I don’t have any idea what you mean,” she says, her tone falsely innocent.

Arnold comes up from behind him, immediately going to join Helga. She takes his hand. The boy’s parents follow in after him. Miles claps a hand on his father’s shoulder. “I dunno, Pops, the way you guys always told me that story when I was kids, Mom _did_ rescue you.”

Grandpa groans and waves a dismissive hand at his son. “Ahh, what d’you know—you’ve been asleep for ten years.”

There is a long moment where everyone stares at the man. Helga has gone slack jawed—even she generally has more tact than that! Arnold is looking between his Grandpa and his dad, wide eyed.

After a moment though, Miles lets out something like a snort, which quickly becomes full blown laughter. There is the slightest hint of a hysterical edge to it, but it is otherwise genuine. He hugs his father. “Aw man, Pops, don’t ever change.”

Grandpa hugs his son back tightly. “Wasn’t plannin’ on it, kiddo.”

Helga finds herself smiling at the scene.

It’s easy for her to forget that it wasn’t just Arnold losing his parents, or Arnold’s parents losing their son’s childhood—Phil and Gertie lost a son and a daughter; had thought them dead, had mourned them. And they clearly used humor as a coping mechanism (it was one that Helga was rather familiar with herself).

As Phil pulled back from his son, he shot a glare out into the hall. “Now, where’re those darned boarders? The food’ll get cold.”

‘Food’ is apparently the magic word, because it seems like the other adults instantly materialized out of thin air.

Dinner is a lively. Helga gets to know Suzie a bit better, finally recognizing her as Miriam’s friend from spring break in fourth grade. The woman expresses interest in meeting up with her again, which Helga is more than fine with. The more Miriam gets out and interact with normal not-Bob human beings, the less likely she is to drink herself into a coma (again).

About halfway through dinner, Helga accidentally kicks Arnold’s foot. He kicks her back, giving her small smirk, even as he turns to have a conversation with Mr. Hyuhn about (Helga’s stomach twists nervously) his daughter, Mai. Helga kicks at the boy again, because she has an inkling about what the boy is trying to start, and it fills her throat with butterflies.

Suddenly, Helga and Arnold are playing footsie.

(And, not that she would ever admit it, this falls into that category of innocent fantasies she’s had about the boy since kindergarten.)

She can tell that many of the adults notice the jostling of the table (brought on by the kicking), and the secret smiles the young couple keep sharing between each other, but they don’t say anything against it. They simply go on with their meal like they don’t notice. And, as such, Helga can’t find it within herself to be anxious that people have caught her doing something so stupidly flirty.

The rest of dinner passes in this vein. By the time the couple leave the cleared table (Arnold is limping a little, due to an unfortunately timed kick that connected to a shin), they’re both stifling giggles. Helga is pleasantly full and a little sleepy.

They all gather in the living room, Helga squished in between Arnold and his Grandma in an effort to keep her hand laced with the Football Head. She’s not too unhappy over it, of course.

Stella beams at all of them, clasping her hands together. “Now, I believe we’ve been promised some stories from a few people, about what we’ve missed.” There is something a little like hungry desperation in her eyes, almost hidden.

“What d’ya think, Shortman?” Arnold’s Grandpa asks him, grinning. “Where should we start?”

Arnold gives him a lost sort of look. “I’m not really sure,” he admits.

“I’ll go first,” Helga volunteers. “If that’s cool with everyone?”

Her boyfriend’s ( _boyfriend_ ! She gets to casually refer to Arnold as her _boyfriend_ now) parents both beam encouragingly at her. Said boyfriend squeezes her hand in agreement and snuggles closer to Helga in a way he probably thinks it subtle.

It’s not.

She doesn’t mind.

“So, back in third grade, that was when Arnold really got into the helping-people business.” She can see Arnold blush out of the corner of her eye, ducking his head.

“It’s not a _business_ ,” he mumbles.

Helga rolls her eyes. “Okay, _fine_ . It was in third grade when Arnold began embracing his role of a _Saint_. How ‘bout that, Arnoldo?”

He goes a deeper red, even as many of the adults burst into chuckles. “ _Helga_.”

“So, one of the bigger ‘events’, was that time when my dad tried to have Mighty Pete knocked down.” She scoffs a little. “And, now that I think about it, my dad played the villain role a lot in regards to you.”

Arnold opens his mouth, likely to protest this (though Helga knows he knows it’s true), but Miles speaks before he can. “Mighty Pete? I spent most of my childhood up in that tree!”

Grandpa grumbles under his breath at this statement. “Yeah, an’ the rest of it you spent in the hospital for fallin’ out of it.”

Miles laughs, then reaches over to ruffle his son’s hair. Arnold beams at the affection. “It’s great that you saved it.”

“Well, most everyone in the class helped; like Helga,” Arnold says, gesturing towards her.

Miles immediately turns his smile on Helga, who speaks up. “Hey, hey, we’re supposed to be talking about you, Football Head!”

Mr. Hyuhn appears to agree, because he speaks, grinning. “Yes. Arnold is a very good boy. He helped me to find my daughter, Mai.”

Helga’s stomach drops.

Stella gasps, smiling widely. “Oh! Mr. Hyuhn, I’m so happy for you.” She folds her son into a hug. “I’m so proud of you!”

Helga’s heart is beating a tattoo into her throat. She is nervous. She doesn’t want Arnold to find out. Even as she stares at the wall behind Mr. Hyuhn’s head, she begs him not to let it slip (though, she doesn’t _think_ he knows…right?).

“I didn’t do that alone either,” Arnold says.

Mr. Hyuhn nods. “Oh, your friends!” he agrees. “That boy, Gerald, and Mai told me about that gir—”

“—So! What is your daughter doing now, Mr. Hyuhn?” Helga interrupts loudly, plastering on a shaky grin. “She’s—She’s an adult now, yeah?” Like Helga doesn’t already _know_ the woman’s age. Admittedly, she actually _is_ kind of curious to know what her job is. From the half-hour that Helga had to get to know the woman, she had seemed like a cheerful, kind, and—frankly—Arnold-like woman.

Mr. Hyuhn, like most caring parents, is happy to talk about his daughter. “She is a social worker for the state. She works with foster children.”

They spend some more time talking about the woman (though not anymore about Christmas, thankfully), before the topic moves back towards Arnold. The occupants of the living room take turns telling stories about the Football-Headed boy.

Helga is rather delighted to learn several stories of Arnold-as-a-baby. Both because they’re adorable and hilarious to listen to, and also because they make Arnold blush spectacularly. Which is, obviously, wonderful. She especially likes the one about Arnold giving the boarders the run-around looking for him (he was in the living room, but the boarders had somehow ended up on the other side of town).

After what seems like only minutes, Helga steals a look at the clock, astonished to find that nearly three hours have passed since dinner ended. It’s about to hit nine PM. She gets to her feet, tugging her hand free of Arnold’s. Phil stops in the middle of telling a story about Arnold mending the relationship between the old man and his sister.

“Is something wrong, Helga?” Miles and Arnold ask at the same time, matching looks of concern on their faces.

Helga shakes her head. “No, but Olga is gonna flip out if I’m not back at the st—house soon.”

Phil’s eyes narrow at Helga’s near slip and she holds her breath, hoping he’ll move on without comment.

To her relief, he grins. “Well, Shortman, shall we drive your girlfriend here home?”

Arnold stands, smiling again. He takes Helga’s hand. “Yeah.”

Helga bites her lip. She debates the risk of simply saying she’ll walk home. She doesn’t want them to get suspicious of her living situation, and she knows there’s risk either way she goes. After a moment, she says, “Sure, that’d be fine.”

She just hopes she won’t regret it.

* * *

She regrets it.

Helga once again asks to be dropped off a street from her house. Being that it’s not nearly late enough for her family to be asleep, she tells them that her mother isn’t feeling well and the sound of the Packard will aggravate the woman’s migraine. Phil’s suspicious look comes back but he acquiesces.

She gives Arnold a small kiss on the cheek before she leaves this time. “I had a great time today, Arnold.” He smiles at her, but there’s something strange in his eyes that Helga can’t quite place. Shrugging it off, she waves goodbye and leaves them.

She thinks she’s gotten away with it again, so she strides past her old house without stopping.

It is not long after, however, that she hears the rumbling noise of the Packard. Her stomach turns over and turns to ice. She stops, without looking back.

“This does not look like your house, Helga.”

Arnold.  
  
Helga squeezes her eyes shut and takes a couple deep, shaking breaths. She will not yell at Arnold. Even though anxiety and something like humiliation are building in her throat, she will keep her temper.  
  
She half succeeds. She turns around to look at Arnold; he is leaning out of the car window, looking the most concerned she has ever seen him look—excepting, of course, for parent related happenings. Helga’s fists clench, the handles of the grocery bag digging into the palm of her hand as she does so. “Were you following me?!” She at least manages to keep her voice under a bellow.  
  
“I was worried about you, Helga. You’ve been acting oddly ever since we got in the car.” Arnold gets out of the car and grabs her hand. “I wanted to make sure you got home safe. Why aren’t you home?”  
  
“Because there’s no home there to go back to,” Helga says and snatches her hand away. “We’ve…moved.” She flicks her eyes towards the boy’s grandparent. The man is pretending not to hear their ‘conversation’. There is a flutter of something like gratefulness in her mind, but she quashes it like the distraction it is.  
  
“Well, why didn’t you just have Grandpa take you to your new house?” Arnold asks in frustrated confusion.  
  
“Maybe I didn’t want Football-Headed geekbaits to know where I lived.” With that snarl, she turns away from him.  
  
“Helga.” The boy’s voice is hard, but still concerned. Helga doesn’t want pity.

“Don’t ‘Helga’ me, Arnoldo, it’s none of your business where I’m going!” Her voice is rising and she bites the inside of her cheek until she can taste copper, wanting to quell herself. There are mortified tears burning at the back of her throat, but she refuses to cry.

“Helga,” Arnold says, and his voice is soft now, sad, but he isn’t backing down. “I would think that, as your boyfriend, that would at least let me be concerned about what happens to you.”

Helga’s resolve wavers, the burning gets worse, but she’s not done fighting this. “I’m a big girl, Arnold, I can take care of myself.”

“I know you can, Helga, I’m not arguing with that,” he replies, moving forward to take her hand again. She lets him. “But, that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna worry.” His eyes flick down at the ground. “It—Not far from here, it’s where I got mugged. You remember that ri—?”

“How could I forget?” she asks him, voice a cracking whisper. “You came to school with bruises then started acting like a whole other person. It’s hard to forget.”

Arnold nods, squeezing her hand and looking at her with those big, green eyes. “Well, can you maybe get why I’d be worried?”

Helga looks away from him, feeling a few tears (partly at the reminder of that time, but mostly because she’s given up on holding them back). “Yeah, I guess so.” She sighs. “We lost it,” she admits, finally.

“What?”

“It—the house, we lost it…couple-a months ago.” She can’t look at him, cannot bear to. “Bob hasn’t been making much money at the store, and every time he tried to come up with a get-rich scheme, all it did was make us poorer.” She is failing miserably at biting back her tears, but she’s past the point of caring. “We’re living out of my dad’s store, okay? That’s the big secret! And if you tell anyone, I swear, Arnoldo, I will never speak to you again—not even to yell at you.”

Arnold pulls her into a hug. “Why didn’t you just tell me?” he asks into her hair. “You didn’t think I’d make fun of you for it, did you?”

Helga shakes her head, slumping into his embrace. “No, but I was worried you’d pity me—make me your next project.”

He pulls away slightly, not fully out of the hug, just enough to look in her eyes. “I don’t pity you, Helga. I care about you and want you to be safe and I _worry_ about you, but that isn’t the same thing.”

She nods, breathing in the scent of him. “I probably wouldda told you soon,” she says, pulling back reluctantly, after a moment spent silently hugging. “I’m. Really, really tired of keeping secrets, from you.”

“Well, _thank you_ for telling me,” he says genuinely. He’s smiling again, and it’s a little bit sad, but it’s no longer full that concern, the one that grates on her the more she sees it. “Will you let us drive you back to the store?”

Helga agrees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter!: ...? It is a ~mystery~. Gerald and Phoebe will be in it probably?


	9. A Honest Discussion in the Wee Hours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helga gets home, hoping for sleep, but is interrupted in that venture after only a few hours. 
> 
> This poor child needs more rest, honestly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Five million years later, I post another chapter. It's rather short because I'm going through a nasty case of writers block (not to mention I just got over the flu lmao), I'm...um...failing a class atm, and Mental Health related issues. Fun stuff.
> 
> Sorry for the wait, and for the shortness of the chap, but I wanted to get something up. Love you guys and I'm honestly so thankful for your support. 
> 
> Warning for some talk of alcohol addiction.

There is a tight feeling in Helga’s lungs, one that’s been building since the moment she got back in the car. It feels similar to her panic attack yesterday, but there is no dizziness to accompany it. All she knows is, it’s getting harder to breathe, the closer Grandpa drives to the Beeper Store. And she doesn’t quite understand why.

She’d told Arnold the truth, so why is she still so anxious about it?

Along with the tight feeling, comes a wave of exhaustion. She’s so tired. All she really wants is to curl into Arnold and sleep for a month.

Obviously, that is neither practical, nor likely to happen.

In the time it takes to blink, it seems as though they’ve stopped in front of the store. She gives Arnold’s hand a squeeze as she gets out of the car. “Thanks for the lift, I s’ppose,” she says weakly.

“Do you wanna come over to the boarding house again tomorrow?” he asks her.

Helga gives him a smile, even as she shakes her head. “Thanks, but no. Tomorrow is me an’ Phoebe’s day.”

During the summer, and during most of the other breaks, she and Phoebe will meet up on Wednesdays to just hang out. Often, Helga will end up at Phoebe’s house and spent the night. Helga likes when that happens, because she enjoys interacting with Phoebe’s parents—and also eating their food.

Arnold sighs in regret, but still beams at her. “I hope you two have fun.”

“We will. I’ll probably call you at some point, though,” Helga says. “You and me need to work out the whole Cecile thing before we put it into practice.” She gives him a hard look. “By the way, don’t tell Gerald about it.”

Helga is pretty sure Gerald would laugh himself silly over the whole situation if he were to find out. Arnold frowns a little, obviously not agreeing with Helga’s thought. “Are you sure, Helga? I’m sure Gerald would never tell—”

“—Oh, I’m at the point where I know he wouldn’t gossip about it, but he’d probably find it hilarious and I’m not in the mood for that.”

“Okay, I promise I won’t tell him,” Arnold says gently. Then he leans over to peck her on the cheek. “It’s getting pretty late, you’d probably better get some rest.”

Helga finds herself nodding tiredly, but points a finger at him. “Yeah, okay, I’m going, but not because it was your suggestion, but because I’ve had a long day and I wanna sleep.”

Arnold laughs. “Okay, Helga. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

She goes into the store. She can hear the Packard idling until she’s inside before it rumbles off. She’s caught between annoyance at that, and being slightly touched.

No one else in the building is up and about, and Helga is more than happy about that. Despite the fact that she and Olga now have something like a truce, the woman is still, frankly, exhausting to be around. Along with that, she is in no mood to see Bob.

As for Miriam…well, Helga isn’t really sure she wants to see her mother. Sometimes, she _likes_ being around her mother--on her more lucid days, especially. She likes the days where she and Miriam can bond over stuff, like during those few blessed weeks when Miriam had taken over Bob’s job (before said job took over her life and she became just as bad, if not worse, than before); or that short period of time, after they had lost their map and wrecked their car, when Helga had discovered that Miriam used to do amazing things. She likes those times. However, being that those times are far and few between, it’s easier to just ignore her.

Honestly, sometimes she thinks that those small tastes of what it would be like to have a _real_ mom, make the reality of it all so much worse.

Helga blinks, and comes to the startled realization that she’s been standing stock-still and staring into nothing for at least a minute. She shakes herself and heads to bed. With the exhausting day (in more ways than one) Helga has had, it doesn’t take long for her to drift off to sleep.

_She is on the roof of the boarding house. The sun is just beginning to set—fading into a golden red skyline, and the breeze is lazy and warm against her skin. She smiles, feeling happy and peaceful._

_“Mom and Dad are back if you wanna come say hello,” a voice says from behind her._

_Helga turns, smile coming to her face before she can understand why. It takes her a moment to recognize the young man standing before her, but she would know that football shape anywhere. Arnold is taller than Helga remembers and broad in the shoulders. He’s as handsome as ever, of course._

_Helga nods. “Yeah, it’d be nice to see them. It’s been a while.” She walks over, linking an arm with his._

_Downstairs, the boarding house has gathered in the dining room. The adults are all gray-haired; Stella and Miles have exchanged their single streak of silver for many. They all beam at her when she and Arnold join them._

_“Helga,” Miles and Stella say together, both pulling her into a tight hug._

_“It’s great to see you again, Mr. and Mrs. Shortman,” Helga says genuinely, hugging them back. “How’s the jungle?”_

_“Keeping us busy,” Miles says, as the couple step back. Stella gives Helga a mock stern look._

_“I thought we’ve said to call us Mom and Dad?” She reaches over to clasp Helga’s hands with her own. “I wish you would. You’re practically our daughter anyhow.”_

_“And it’ll be official eventually, assuming this son of ours gets his act together and proposes,” Miles says, jabbing gently at Arnold’s side with an elbow. Arnold laughs, blushing._

_Helga grins, though her throat suddenly feels thick and burning. “Okay, Mom. Dad.”_

Helga blinks awake, immediately aware of a low keening sound. It takes her slightly longer to realize that it’s coming from her. She sits up, fighting against the sobs that are trying to force their way out of her throat. They emerge as whimpers instead.

She’s so tired of crying. It’s happened too often since San Lorenzo and she wants it to _stop_ . And the thing is…the absolutely _stupid_ thing is, she isn’t even sure why she’s crying.   
It had been a good dream. It had been a _wonderful_ dream. It had made her so happy while she was asleep.   
So, why does she hurt so badly now?   
“Helga?”

Crap.

Helga quickly scrubs over her face, trying to rid the evidence of her tears before Miriam sees them. This is a rather difficult feat, considering she’s still in the midst of crying. Still, she manages to swallow her hitching breath by the time her mother appears in her doorway.

“Everything alright, sweetie?” the woman asks. Helga isn’t sure whether to be relieved or nervous at the woman’s clear eyes, as they easily focus on her. It’s harder to hide things from Miriam when she isn’t drunk.

“Everything’s just peachy Miriam,” Helga replies. She’s trying to sound sleepy but casual, and ultimately failing when her voice comes out scratchy and weak.

Miriam’s brow furrows. After a moment of clear indision, the woman sits at the foot of Helga’s bed (well, Helga uses the term ‘bed’ losely; it’s actually a layer of blankets stacked on top of a mattress that’s sitting on the floor). “Helga, I heard you.”

Helga’s insides freeze.

She has been very, very careful over the last couple years to avoid having her family hear her cry. She’s perfectly fine with them seeing her angry, mainly because it’s rare for them to do anything about it. However, the idea that they would see her upset, sad, and take that same approach is too much for Helga to think of. Better to go on believing they’ve just never heard her.

“Heard me when?” Helga asks, managing to sound nonchalant, as she clutches her hands together tightly under her blanket.

For a moment, Miriam is silent. Her eyes grow sad as she seems to come to some conclusion. Then, she takes a deep breath and speaks. “Do you really think we would be happier without you here?”

That confirms Helga’s suspicion that the woman was aware enough this morning to hear her angry words to Bob. Great, just great. Utterly ducky.

“Wouldn’t you?” Helga asks back, bitingly.

Miriam’s eyes well with tears. “Helga, how could you say that? We love you.”

She scoffs. “You guys sure have a funny way of showing it.”

Miriam jerks back, stung by the words.

It’s like a dam has broken open. The raw, stark contrast between reality and the dream she was just having is glaring. “I’ve been taking care of myself since I was three. Most parents show a little love by making sure _their basic needs are taken care of._ But, no. I’ve taken myself to school since I was a toddler. I need to make my own food because it’s rare that I’ll get fed otherwise. And, as Olga _oh_ so _cheerfully_ let slip to my class a couple years ago, I basically had to _potty-train_ myself. So, yeah, if sometimes I don’t feel wanted in this family, I think I have a pretty good reason.” Helga stares at her. Miriam’s tears have spilt over.

It takes her two minutes to reply to the angry words. “I. Helga….I’m sorry we’ve made you feel unwanted. I do love you, I promise. I know I’m not a good mother, but…” She swallows. “I’m going to try and do better, I swear.”

Helga’s anger drains away in an instant. Her words are honest; she’s not lying. At the same time though, she not sure she believes her mother. “I want to believe you, but you’ve promised to be a better mom more than once over the last couple years. And it hasn’t happened.” Helga’s voice comes out exhausted, and it has nothing to do with the time of night, and everything to do with how tired she is of hope when it comes to her family. “Sure, you’ll do pretty good for a couple of days, a few weeks if I’m lucky, but that just makes it all the more crappy when you fall off the wagon again and I’m back to looking out for myself.”

Her mother swallows heavily. Her voice is timid, hesitant. “What can I do to prove I’m going to change?”

She’s serious. Miriam is _actually_ serious. Is Helga still asleep?

Against her will, Helga feels the smallest shred of hope rising. “Do you really want to know?” Miriam nods. Helga steels herself. “Stop drinking. Promise me that and I’ll even think of forgiving you.”

Miriam is silent for a long moment. Helga’s brief moment of optimism wanes, but then her mother finally replies. “Okay. I’ll…I will try to get some help.” Her face becomes firm with resolve.

Helga’s stomach squirms with anxious hope. “I’m going to hold you to that,” she swears. In the back of her mind that little shred of optimism that always tries to gives Miriam a chance is _pleading_ for this to be true, while warring with the larger, pessimistic part that is all but screaming that _this is it, this is Miriam’s_ last _chance._

If her mother doesn’t follow through, Helga doesn’t think she will ever be able to forgive the woman.

Still, showing doubt is not going to help any, so Helga doesn’t voice any of this. Instead, wanting to help, Helga offers, “I know a good clinic not very far from here.” She fidgets with her blanket and shifts her eyes away from her mother. “It’s where I go for…for therapy.” She forces her gaze back to her mother. “I’m sure my doctor could…recommend someone for you?”

Miriam’s eyes are grateful at the obvious peace offering but they’ve gotten even sadder. Helga can't quite discern why. 

They’re silent for a moment, before Helga fakes a yawn that turns into an actual one and says, “I’m pretty tired. I’m gonna go back to sleep now.”

Miriam springs up. “Of course!” She shakes her head at herself. “Honestly, where is my mind? Keeping a nine year old up at two in the morning.”

Helga sighs. “I’m eleven, mom.”

Miriam’s eyes go wide and guilty. “Oh. Of course you are…”

Helga gives the woman a break. “Goodnight, Miriam.”

“Goodnight sweetie. I love you.”

She doesn’t appear to expect a reply to this (unsurprisingly), so her pace stutters a bit when Helga says, voice low and (though genuine) somewhat reluctant, “Love you too, mom.”

Miriam throws a wide smile over her shoulder as she leaves the room. The door shuts with a soft click.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm holding off on making a Vine joke about Helga's age.


End file.
